


Seahorses

by EinahSirro



Series: The Lion and the Bull [8]
Category: Troy (2004)
Genre: Anal Sex, Dubious Consent, Frottage, M/M, Reincarnation, Threesome - M/M/M, True Love, Yearning, soul mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:35:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 25,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21713866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EinahSirro/pseuds/EinahSirro
Summary: This incarnation of Hector has so much potential, and Achilles is about to discover it.
Relationships: Achilles/Hector (Troy 2004)
Series: The Lion and the Bull [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1513298
Comments: 19
Kudos: 44





	1. Aboard the HECTOR

The _Hector_ had two masts, a small captain’s cabin in the stern, and could seat 24 oarsmen, with two more manning the sails. With a captain on the bridge looking outward, and a first mate watching the men, the white ship could patrol within sight of the coast, then, with a crew of around two dozen. However, it would be a boring and expensive exercise to employ that many men to live on an ever-patrolling ship that never left sight of land.

The solution, Xander decided, was first to periodically patrol, and establish relations with other villages up and down the coast. When not at sea, he wanted to create a way of communicating from village to village. When the signal came, they must be ready to load up with fighters and go out to intercept any incoming threat. 

After cleaning and painting his new ship—a task he set to with all-consuming concentration, and pressed Achilles into helping—he immediately began dictating to his obliging angel a list of matters that must be attended to.

“Signal fires will work, if the leadership in the surrounding areas agree to it. We need to approach them. And we need to approach them by sea; they need to know we are serious, armed, and able to respond.”

Achilles scratched a note about it onto the parchment. At the moment, they were still just two men on a white, freshly painted, anchored ship, with Xander’s fishing boat tied alongside to ferry them back to the dock, for Achilles was continuing his stay at the widow’s lodgings in the village. The ship was anchored close enough to swim to shore, if one was in the mood, but Achilles was not interested in constantly washing salt water from his hair. 

The sun was bright on the water, but in the captain’s cabin it was cool, and dark if the door was closed. Right now, it was open. Achilles sat at the wooden table with quill and ink. Xander relaxed in the bunk, his long legs bare, his arms folded behind his head. 

“I think we need an armory on board.” Xander added. “Most of our fighters will be just local men, the same ones who came to the waterfront to fight the last time. Some of them were armed with nothing but axes. They need swords.”

“Can they use the swords?” Achilles paused to ask pointedly.

“You’ll train them,” Xander informed him. “But if we need to leave at moment’s notice, we can’t have them all running home first to get their weapons. They need to be able to drop what they are doing and come right to the ship.”

“The fishermen can ferry them to us,” Achilles said.

“—and then we launch.”

Achilles wrote for a moment. Then he looked up again, trying not to peer too intently at the underside of his Hector’s thigh as he lay, leg bent, tunic riding up.

“We’re talking about farmers, shop-keepers, craftsmen… they don’t even know how to man the oars or the tag lines on the sails,” he said to his beloved.

Xander’s knee wagged from side to side for a moment. “We need to run drills. We need to practice taking her out, doing a turn or two, and pulling back in.”

“How big a crew just to move her, if the hold is empty?”

“Eight? Let’s start with eight oarsmen, empty hold, and keep the sails down. If we have eight men as a core crew who know what to do, they can help manage the auxiliary volunteers when it’s time.”

Achilles wrote. “Those eight… we’ll need to pay them enough to want to come on all-day drills. We’ve got to find men who are steady and reliable, and such men are usually already immersed in their own lives.”

Xander thought a moment. “Perhaps the local landowners can each send a trusted servant to be part of our crew.”

“Then whom do we pay, the landowner or the servant?” Achilles asked.

“Both, probably. I hope your mysterious supply of gold pebbles is not drying up yet,” Xander said, looking at him obliquely. 

Achilles smiled slightly. This Hector was the only one not to have ever seen any of his angel’s capabilities, other than fighting. He simply assumed his brother’s lover—as he still occasionally referred to him when he was irritable—was of wealthy stock. 

“Not at all,” he assured his companion.

“Why is it always pebbles, by the way? Why do you never seem to have coins?”

Achilles shrugged. “I can get coins, if you prefer.”

Xander turned his head, admiring the stark cleanliness of his new sheets and blankets, on his new cot. Achilles had shuddered at the thought of his beloved sleeping in the nest that a Saracen pirate had spent weeks sweating into.

“The wash woman doesn’t complain about the pebbles, I gather. Oh, I need more candles.”

Achilles wrote it down, and then looked around the small cabin. “Do you enjoy living in here?”

“Enjoy? It’s better than the fishing boat. But I stay here so no one steals it, not because I prefer it to a home with a tub and a fireplace.”

“And how is one man, even one as combative and evil-tempered as you, going to stop a gang of thieves?” Achilles asked him.

Xander looked at him. “You think I need a crew on board at all times?”

“I think I should stay here with you,” Achilles said.

“Where will you sleep?” Xander challenged him, immediately defensive.

“I’ll bring another cot over and it can go on the floor here,” the warrior said calmly.

“His Lordship on a cot on the floor, imagine,” Xander mocked, dark eyes piercing.

Achilles put the quill down and stretched. “I’ll have you know I’ve gone on more campaigns than you can know, and slept on the same mean cots as my men. I’ve eaten at many a campfire.”

Xander looked at him closely: thus far, Achilles had told him nothing of his life. He’d washed up on his brother’s beach and became part of Karan’s world. Two weeks later, he had met Xander. Now, in the… oh, more than a month that had ensued, he had become Xander’s helpmeet and patron, his scribe, his valet, and his advisor. He worked on Xander’s boat, ferried supplies back and forth, bought whatever their venture needed… but they had not become lovers. And Achilles had volunteered nothing about his previous life until this casual remark.

“Did you?”

“Indeed,” Achilles said, “I had a fleet of men. Myrmidons, we called ourselves. Some of the greatest fighters that ever lived… it was long, long ago,” he added, and grew thoughtful at the table, eyes on scenes that his Hector could not see.

Memories, he’d found, fell into two categories now: those that were as sharp as yesterday, and those that were gone. 

Patroclus, for instance. He had a picture in his mind of the beloved of his youth, of the boy’s green eyes looking out over the sea, and the breeze blowing his brown hair back. He had another of his angry, befuddled look in the hut when Achilles would not fight. He had a last view of him on his funeral pyre, with the gold coins on his eyes. It was all he really had left of Patroclus. He found the memory didn’t hurt him now. There was only a vague sorrow that the boy had never gotten the chance to be a man.

Xander watched Achilles grow still in that odd, unnerving way he had.

“How long ago could it be? You don’t look any older than I am,” he opined. He had a theory about Achilles, but he wasn’t prepared to voice it.

Achilles withdrew from his trance and gazed at his Hector, whose dark eyes were perusing him distrustfully from the bunk.

“Can you think of anything else I should write down? I’m going ashore when we’re done. I can get whatever you need.”

“That’s very obliging. If you’re going to spend the night here, you should bring more food and coals. Remember there is another brazier out on the main deck we can use, as long as we keep it far from the sails.”


	2. Cabin Mates

Four hours later, Achilles was rowing back to the ship, having loaded up the fishing boat with supplies. Anyone looking at it might wonder if he was trying to seduce his testy captain with ham, bread, and honey, with wine and fruits, lanterns and candles, blankets and scented oils, gifts of clothing and beautifully drawn maps, red velvet cushions and silver platters, and even leather bound books, in case Xander wanted to be read to at night. Achilles, in fact, was rather hoping to read to him from Homer. Only the parts that were true, of course.

Xander had a comment for every item Achilles passed up to him over the rail. It was a slow process, as Achilles had to climb half way up the ladder with the item in hand and Xander would lean over to take it. 

“My God, look at the size of this ham. That’s three days even with two of us—where did you get pears—I haven’t had a pear in years—lanterns. I had a lantern on the boat once. We could have used that—how many candles did you get? Are you planning to—what are these pots? If it’s on my ship, it’s my business! Oh of course, his lordship must have soft skin—did you take those on campaign?”

Achilles just smiled slightly, loving the feeling of lifting up yet another offering to the waiting hands, seeing his Hector’s curls dangle down over his forehead and temples as he reached down to take the many gifts his angel was bringing him. Of course he had no idea that each one was a love tribute, and kept up his acerbic commentary, almost as if piqued at the warrior’s silent tolerance.

“How many tunics do you have? Do you know how many I have? Two. I wear one while the other is being washed.”

“Some of them are for you,” Achilles finally said.

Xander placed both hands on the rail and stared down at him. “I don’t need you buying clothes for me.”

“In truth, you do,” Achilles said firmly, stepping back down into the boat and gathering the next item: a bundle of scrolled maps.

“I don’t.” Xander argued.

Achilles stared up at him, his blue eyes wide under his tanned forehead, his blond hair flowing back over his shoulders. “You aspire to be a leader of men. You will want them to follow you, obey you, and respect you. Many will be common men. You must look like a man of some means, and the son of a gentleman, which you are.”

Surprisingly, Xander appeared to think it over. He glanced at the sea to his left, and the waterfront of the village to his right. “They know who I am,” he began.

“Then they know your family has acknowledged you, and they will expect to see that new status reflected on your person.” Achilles stepped up onto the rope ladder and handed up the maps.

Xander bent and took them in his arms, and their hands grazed one another. Achilles could see the uncertain part of his beloved’s lips, and the faintly worried cast of his brows before he retreated with his armful. 

It was diverting to Achilles, and enlightening, to see his Hector now divided into the extreme sides of his nature. Karan was the man who loved his country and his family, the cooperative and affectionate Hector whom Achilles had jealously watched hold his son on the balcony of his room in the palace of Troy. Karan was the Hector who obeyed his father—often with dismay in his eyes—and who held out his wife’s chair attentively. Karan was also the Hector who would wake on the island, confused with lethe, wide-eyed at the blond god who loomed over him naked, with oil in his hands and ravishment in his smile. Karan, like Victor, was raised by a loving father.

Xander was the Hector who put on his helmet and raised his fist to his men, shouting encouragement with fire in his eye. Xander was the Hector who beat his spear against the armor on his chest to pound out the rhythm they marched to. He was the Hector who’d watched Achilles suspiciously on the beaches of Troy, the Philip who assiduously ignored the angel that hovered over him while he copied his scrolls, the Hermenegild that glared defiance at the Bishop, and his torturers… and his savior. 

As for Achilles… Achilles felt like a man in the center of a wondrous creation, turning to behold all sides of it, and aware that he could only see one side at a time. And, not for the first time, he felt his own simplicity. He knew himself now to be an intelligent animal that reacted with little thought. Hector was his food, the surrounding environment was that which could be used to improve the situation of the moment, or must be combatted to preserve the situation of the moment. There was no more to it.

And Achilles was getting hungry for his food. Currently, his food was once again suspicious of him, and Achilles was circling it calmly, reflecting upon his current season.

In truth, the warrior was not yet able to see that his own simplicity was not static, because of that unselfconscious intelligence he brought to bear upon his evolving trajectory. He was learning, always learning, and unaware that this was not a universal attribute. 

When Hector went over the cliff decades ago—centuries ago, technically—that had been a horrific lesson in not terrorizing his beloved, amused because he knew the terror to be unfounded. When Philip had torn his own back to shreds, Achilles had awoken to the necessity of being aware of the impact his sudden appearance and remorseless advances could have on an unready target. When Victor—oh, when Victor died in his arms… that… that had been a cruel lesson on overconfidence, and not taking seriously his beloved’s concerns, however repetitive and trivial they had seemed to the warlord. When he’d tended his Hermenegild’s intimate wounds in the chamber, he’d known instinctively now, had learned, that his beloved’s emotional state was a crucial component to be considered. Everything he’d felt and endured before the arrival of his angel… mattered. He could not simply trap his beloved, overpower him, and ravish him. Well, he could, but as Achilles had come to know: mere compliance is not as sweet as enthusiastic submission.

And Xander was every bit of native resistance teased out like the threads of a rug, and woven together in a stiff rope. He’d had no loving home to protect; only his own self. It was edifying to see how much of his Hector’s kindness had been a sort of reciprocal gratitude to the kindness of those who had loved him before Achilles had come to claim his prize. It was edifying now, as well, to see bitterness of an unloved Hector, as well as the protectiveness that surged up the moment he was given anything to protect.

Achilles had no desire to distract Xander from his first experience of belonging to a family, of being respected, of having status, of creating a place for himself. Indeed, he only wanted to add to it, to become an integral part of the web his busy, focused spider was weaving for himself. He certainly didn’t wish to be regarded as threatening at all.

But he was getting quite hungry indeed for his food.

And his food considered Achilles to be his brother’s lover, and did not want to be a mere replacement for Karan.

So. Achilles handed up his love offerings in adoring silence, and Xander took them in his hands, continuing his alert commentary.

“Velvet cushions? Who ever heard of velvet cushions on a pirate ship? I can just imagine what your war camp must have looked like. You must have had a separate horse packed with… is this silver? We’ll cut our pears and put them on silver while we sit on our velvet cushions, will we? Oh yes, and your library. Well, they’ll be safe from me, won’t they?” That last bit was rather bitter.

“Shall I teach you to read?” Achilles offered.

Xander stood for a moment, the books in his hand. “It is probably too late,” he said quietly, soberly.

“We’ll see.” Achilles watched his fingers run carefully over the bindings before setting them aside. “Throw me some rope and we’ll get this feather mattress up.”

“A feather mattress, yes, of course his lordship must have a feather mattress—“ Xander muttered, going for the rope.

Achilles only smiled, thinking how comfortable it could be laid over Xander’s cot, with all their luxuriant blankets and cushions piled together on top. This Hector had never known the pleasures of wealth. And a hungry seducer uses whatever means he has.


	3. Reminiscing

It was a beautiful evening. Sunset was still lingering in bright red and orange streaks over the sea. Glowing lanterns in the windows of the village homes were faint twinkles on the darkened shore. The _Hector_ swayed gently in the water. 

Blackened remnants of ham were clinging to the makeshift wire grate over the faded glow of the brazier out on the main deck. Wine was making its way through the veins of the two contented men in the wooden chairs beside it. The two sails were still folded and down, and they were still anchored not far from the dock.

“For a while, as a youth, when I wasn’t fishing, I worked as a sort of runner for a gems merchant in Ithaca,” Xander was relaxed enough to wave his chalice a bit. “He was a Jew, but he paid me well enough. I don’t think it’s true what they say.”

“What who says?” Achilles asked.

“Oh, you know. What everyone says about Jews. They keep to themselves, but they have to, don’t they?”

Achilles blinked, trying to remember what “everyone said” about Jews. He’d always regarded them as a sort of Eastern variant of the Zeus worshippers, whereas Christians were rather more like the Apollo types. Then there was the Saracens, and from what little Achilles knew of them from Karan, he was inclined to classify them as… rather the Osiris type. He knew there were details of difference that meant a great deal to the believers of these groups, but they did not matter much to him. He’d never seen any of their gods. 

“So how long did you do that?” Achilles asked.

“Quite a few years, but then his daughter grew old enough to take notice of me, and oh, that was not what her father wanted. But he did help me buy my boat. Mostly so I’d row away in it,” Xander added drily.

“So you fished your way down the shores and islands, looking for your family.”

“All I knew were the names Obelius and Karan, and that Karan looked like me. Then when I found them… well, you know the rest.”

“They seem happy enough to know you now.” Achilles felt he deserved a bit of credit for that.

“Yes, yes, you were right about dressing up and making an entrance,” Xander said, and actually gave a bit of a wry smile. “I suppose you want thanks.”

“Repeated and humble,” Achilles smirked at him.

Xander snorted and they both took another drink.

“Now it’s your turn.” Xander wagged a finger at him. “And I want the truth. Who the hell are you, because I know you are not… not…. normal.”

“I’m from Thessaly.”

“Oh, well, that does shed light. Everyone I’ve met from Thessaly has been strange.”

Achilles chuckled a bit, looking over at the lights of the village.

“But really. Who are you?” Xander rolled his head on the back of his chair to stare.

“Can’t I simply be a … a warrior who left home for a foreign adventure and is just not ready to return yet?”

“Like Odysseus? Oh, you’re surprised. Just because I can’t read the old poems doesn’t mean I never heard of them.”

Achilles sighed and looked off again into the night. Then he spoke.

“Odysseus was a clever fellow. He always knew what to say, and usually knew what to do. Very politic, too. Understood the way the world really works. Liked to play little jokes on people sometimes, too, but a good fighter. Never too sentimental, nor too cynical. He took most things seriously enough not to act the fool, but never so seriously that he couldn’t get a laugh or two,” Achilles was surprised to find the wine making him a bit expansive.

Xander was listening intently. “You speak as if you knew him.”

Achilles tipped his head back and looked at the stars, growing very still.

Xander got slight prickles along his spine, remembering the ancient lizards so still on the rocks.

“What was Agamemnon like?” He asked testingly.

The curl on Achilles’ full lips was unmistakable. “Strutting, shifty-eyed rooster who stayed well out of the way when battles raged. Always there when victory was to be claimed, however. He used to say the same things to different people, but change it just a bit so each king and general thought that Agamemnon had some special regard for him.”

Achilles shook his head in disgust and continued. “He was political, which is not the same as politic. Odysseus did what needed to be done for the safety and welfare of his people. Agamemnon—“ Achilles was warming up now, unaware how much he was revealing. “—he was a self-serving braggart with grandiose dreams of his statue towering over all of Greece. But how many children do you meet today named Agamemnon? None.”

Xander was rapt. “Was Helen as beautiful as what they said?”

Achilles shrugged. “She was pretty,” he conceded. “But many maids are pretty. Dress them in silk and jewels, and put a crown on their heads, however, and they apparently become something quite special. I never knew what was so special about her, however. She hardly spoke at all, and spent most of her time with her eyes just going from one of us to the next, making her little deductions, and picking at her food.”

Suddenly, Achilles became aware of what he was saying.

He turned to see Xander regarding him in silence.

Finally, his Hector wagged his finger at him again. “You’re drunk.”

Achilles laughed, looking away again. “I am, “ he admitted. “Let’s put it all down for the night.”

Xander heaved himself up out of his chair and poured some fresh water from the bucket into a pan and set it over the hot coals. Then he fetched up the lantern.

“We’ll give that a minute.”

Achilles followed his love into the cabin and watched his Hector set the lantern on the table, and use its fire to light several candles.

“Look at this place. All that’s missing is a servant standing in a corner,” Xander said, glancing around. Achilles had already tacked several of the maps to the walls, and piled the fruit into the silver bowl on the table. The feather mattress was on the floor covered with blankets. The red cushions were on the chairs. The books were on the shelf over the porthole. His sword that Karan gave him the day of the Saracen attack was mounted on the wall at a rakish angle. It was looking like rather a stylish pirate lived here.

“So how is a feather bed better than a regular one?” Xander asked.

Achilles stepped back and made a gesture. “Lie down and see.”

Xander gave him a warning glance and then flopped down on it, only to give a guttural cry of disfavor. “This is awful, you can feel the wooden deck right through it! I don’t think these are meant to be used alone.”

Achilles scowled. “What? Move,” he instructed, and when his Hector was out of the way, he flopped on it in a similar fashion. Xander was right. It wasn’t enough.

“Oh, this will be a miserable night,” he fumed.

Xander stood, arms at his sides, an indecision on his face. He looked back at his own bed. It was not grand, but two could fit well enough.

“Alright. Let’s—“ he gave a jerk of his thumb, and Achilles leapt up eagerly to help him move the feather mattress.

“Wait, move the blankets.” 

There was some maneuvering, and then finally the soft feather overlay was on the cot, and the sheets and blankets spread invitingly.

Achilles was pleased. This was going very well.

Xander looked around and nodded. “I’ll get the water. I like to wash up a bit, especially my feet, before I retire, and if you’re going to be in that bed, you’ll have to wash yours too.”

Achilles would have happily knelt and washed Xanders’ feet for him, but he kept his lips shut and nodded obligingly. Whatever got him into that bed with his beloved.

When they were both clean enough, and settled in, Achilles against the wall, and Xander to the outside—probably so he could make a quick escape if need be—the captain turned to his first mate sternly.

“I am not Karan. I don’t want to wake up in the night and discover that you have forgotten that I am not Karan. Are we agreed?”

Achilles gave him an innocent look. “By birth, you are Karan, I thought.”

Xander didn’t even bother answering that. He just gave that stern, Hector-like stare.

Achilles settled back mildly, eyes on the overhead.

“Why are your oils and towels here?” Xander asked suddenly, craning his neck to look behind him at the bit of shelving between the head of the bed, and the bulkhead.

“Where else could I put them?” Achilles said reasonably.

Xander reached up and took up one of the little clay pots. He opened it and gave an experimental sniff, and suddenly his dark eyes widened. 

“Oh,” he said, and his head veritably fell back on the pillow. His lips were parted and he stared at nothing.

Achilles rolled over and propped his head on one arm. “Nice?”

Xander looked as if he’d been hit on the head. “That scent…” he glanced over at his benefactor, regarding him with soft eyes, and his yellow hair curving in waves around his temples and jaw.

“No,” he said almost helplessly, and now his dark eyes were worried.

Achilles eyes seemed to shutter, somehow. “You need sleep,” he decided, and put a hand on Xander’s forehead. Then he lifted it again. “Do you have bad dreams?”

“Not frequently, why?” Xander asked apprehensively.

“I just wondered,” Achilles murmured. “Sleep.”


	4. Sleep

Achilles awoke in the middle of the night to discover that it was Xander who apparently forgot he was not Karan. He swam up from the depths of a heartfelt dream wherein his Hector was snuggled tightly up behind him. One arm was over his waist and reaching up to lay a large hand against his chest, pulling him back against the warm body touching his. One long leg was thrust firmly between his own, pushed up tight under his buttocks. And an unmistakable length of hot hardness was fortuitously pressed against the crease between them.

When it was evident that the dream was real, Achilles’ eyes flew open. He was achingly hard, and when he shifted slightly, Xander shifted with him, giving a hum of contentment in his sleep. 

Experimentally, Achilles gave a slight roll of his hips against the heat behind him. With a guttural sound, Xander ground himself against the warm body under his arm, and brought his other arm from under him to slip his hand under Achilles’ waist. Now his Hector was clutching him, pressing against him, and seemed to want to roll Achilles over on his belly and mount him.

Obligingly, Achilles rolled over, turning his head to see if Xander was awake. He wasn’t. In fact, from the position of the moonlight, they hadn’t been asleep for long. It was very likely Xander was still under the spell of Achilles’ command to sleep. He’d be almost impossible to awaken.

But now, in his sleep, he was clearly hungry for love. He pushed himself against Achilles again, pulling at his hips to bring the warrior’s buttocks up against his hard cock.

Achilles hesitated. This had never been their way, but…. He gave another look at the beloved, sleeping face. The dark eyebrows were knit with aching want.

He reached for the oil and bathed his fingers in it. Then, drawing them back, he put them briefly under his love’s nose to see if the scent registered in his erotic dream. From the sudden heavy exhale that seemed to come from his throat, it did. 

The warrior smiled and slipped his hand behind himself, sliding the oil into his own hot cleft. Then he turned, and shed his clothing in a few quick movements. Deftly, he reached down and pulled aside what little cloth concealed his beloved’s nakedness, and then turned and leaned back into his Hector, offering up his buttocks to the straining flesh that willingly pressed between them.

Both of them exhaled, moving against one another and concentrating on their pleasure. After an ardent moment of sliding up and down between his companion’s tight cheeks, Xander rolled him over and mounted him, face nuzzling eagerly in Achilles’ neck, hands wanting under his chest to cradle him.

Wide-eyed at this new position, Achilles arched obediently against his beloved and writhed his muscular body, flexing himself, intent upon giving his beloved a good ride. For long moments he reveled in the weight of his Hector as Xander pumped his hips against his golden captive, becoming more and more insistent and invasive with every thrust.

When the tip of his cock found the hot opening it sought and pressed, Achilles opened his mouth in a silent roar and clenched his fists on the pillows. The oil helped, but the burning feeling that accompanied the pressure was unexpected.

He bit his lips and remained compliant, glorying in the feel of the demanding weight on his back, the wiry brush of hair against his cheeks, the two strong thighs pushing their way between his and nudging his legs apart.

Their breathing was loud in the dark cabin. Achilles stretched his arms over his head in a silent gesture of submission, and offered up his hips, impaling himself on Xander’s probing hardness. A grunt of effort came from his throat as his body opened and accepted the invasion. Xander, groaning softly behind him, gripped him tighter and penetrated deeper, his hot breath stirring the long blond hair that he buried his face in.

Soon they were moving together, Achilles adapting himself slavishly to Xander’s every thrust, digging his knees into the bedding and pressing his buttocks up wantonly. The powerful muscles in his shoulders flexed as he arched his back, putting himself at a welcoming angle. Xander pounded on him, groaning with ecstasy. 

When he finally came, driving in hard and rotating his hips slightly, his cock pressed on something inside his lover that sent a sharp frisson of unbearable pleasure through him. The release clutched at his balls and traveled up like a sweet knife through his cock, and he cried out into the pillow, coming as Xander held him down.

When it was over, Achilles lay panting and open-mouthed, overcome. Xander slipped loose of him, and sagged to his side, but still maintained possession with one long arm and leg. Finally, the warrior turned to look at him, almost afraid to see. But no, Xander was still asleep.

Eventually, Achilles regained himself enough to become uncomfortable, given that he was a mess both front and back. Hoping his sleep spell held a bit longer, he carefully removed himself, reached for a towel, and began the mopping up procedures. He hoped to restore their bed and his body to relative normalcy so that in the morning… perhaps Xander would not know.

***

Xander woke in the morning in his luxurious bed with a profound sense of well-being and contentment. He was sunk deep in feathery softness. The fresh scented sheets and blankets were warm upon him. There was even reassurance in the steady breathing beside him from the mound under the covers that emanated heat and was topped with long, trailing strands of blond hair.

He did not remember dreaming, but he felt as though he must have, and it must have been glorious. He had a sudden urge to roll over and take his sleeping companion in his arms and just feel their nakedness together. His eyes widened in alarm. Was he naked? He felt around midsection; no, all was as it should be. Still, he looked longingly over at Achilles. _If only you were not my brother’s,_ he thought.

Then he thought, _of course, my brother has much that should have been mine._

Maybe he should take Achilles from Karan, he though idly. Wasn’t he owed something? And would Achilles respond? Xander was fairly certain that he would. 

Xander found that his body was certainly responding to the thought ardently. Of course, he’d just woken up, so his body was ready anyway. Perhaps he should not contemplate these matters at such a provocative time of day, in such a compromising position.

He carefully removed himself from the bed and went outside. He didn’t want to be there when those blue eyes opened.


	5. Visit

Achilles sent a note to Karan that morning, indicating that if the family of Obelius would be willing to take the lead in establishing a system of defense in Rhamnus, they should hold a family dinner and hear Xander’s plan for creating such a structure.

Karan arrived on horseback that afternoon, accompanied by Dru, who still looked like a colt himself. He left Dru to mind the horses at the water’s edge and walked out to the end of the dock with a basket in one hand. He stood gazing at the white ship bobbing just beyond a halloo’s reach and waited, admiring it.

Achilles was in the hold making note of how much storage they had, and how their own straight swords might hang in the brackets that Saracens had hung their scimitars on, when a sudden feeling told him that he should come up to the deck and look around. 

Frowning, he came up to the open air, looked around, looked over at the dock, and saw Karan dressed in a white tunic with a blue garment draped over it. 

His kind Hector saw him and raised his hand in greeting. Achilles felt a flutter in his chest. No matter how much he enjoyed every second with Xander, it was clear that there was still a part of him that very much loved and missed his kind Hector. He raised a hand gladly and then turned to find Xander, who was splicing rope on deck.

“Your brother,” he called, and jerked a thumb toward the dock.

A few moments later, the two were in the smaller boat, rowing to the dock.

Achilles let Xander exit first, and watched the brothers embrace. That was a guilty pleasure, he found to his embarrassed surprise. Watching Karan and Xander hug made him inhale rather deeply and look away, smiling to himself. 

Then he climbed out himself and got a delicious embrace of his own, and looked up into Karan’s hopeful, loving eyes. They had not seen each other in over a month, and Achilles was startled to see that he could now detect trace differences in their faces. It seemed to him now that Xander’s eyes were just slightly longer and narrower, and that Karan’s were rounder. As to which one was more like his original Hector, it was impossible to say.

“Oh, I have a gift,” Karan turned to the basket he’d set on the dock. “Uncle Jorges and his brother Egan sent a small cask of wine, and I bring this,” he pointed to a leather bag about the size of a fist. “It contains our father’s compass. It was in the library, from his travels,” he handed the basket to Xander, who took it with thanks. His words were muted, but his eyes showed a startled pleasure. Achilles wondered if he’d never had gifts before, or if it was the significance of his father’s compass that moved him.

“So, when should we have this dinner?” Karan asked eagerly. “I should host it, and you must stay as my guests that night. We’ll ask my uncles to help make up a list of landowners to approach.”

“Soon,” Xander advised. “The ship is ready; we need to start building a crew.”

“Ah, well, you already have one volunteer,” Karan smiled, looking back at the horses. “Dru wants to go to sea.”

“He’s a bit young to row,” Achilles opined, but Xander disagreed.

“We can teach him to tagline the sails.”

Achilles snorted. “A good breeze would take him right off his feet.” 

“What boy wouldn’t love that?!” Karan asked, and they all smiled.

“When do you think you could be ready?” Xander asked.

“Tomorrow night. Why wait?” Karan said, and then looked past him longingly. “I have not had a tour of the _Hector_ yet,” he said. 

Xander made a gesture to the fishing boat, and Karan, face glowing like a boy himself, stepped into it, and then grabbed the gunwale as he realized that unlike the ground, a boat moves under your feet.

They turned to Achilles expectantly, but he waved them off. The brothers had not yet spent much time alone together, and he found himself wanting them to be friends. He watched Xander row them out, and observed, amused, as Xander went quickly up the rope ladder, and Karan followed with somewhat more concentration, and several glances down. Achilles watched for a bit as the twins moved about the ship together, Xander in his white tunic, Karan in his blue.

Finally, he turned and strolled down the dock to greet Dru, who seemed slightly taller now, though just as gangly and nail-bitten as ever. 

“How are Zoe and the baby?” He asked.

“One is mean and one cries all the time,” Dru answered directly. “Can I come be on the ship with you?”

“Xander seems to think you could learn how to manage the smaller sail,” Achilles told him, pleased with how the boy’s face lit up. “You think you could?”

“Yes!” He promised eagerly.

“It’s harder than it looks,” Achilles warned the boy.

“I’d do anything to get off that farm,” Dru assured him.

Achilles smiled away into the distance. Yes, he did rather remember being that age, and thinking something similar.

“How is Cole?”

“He’s well. He healed very fast from when the Saracens cut him. He was bleeding a lot, and then you came, and after that he got better very quickly.” Dru peered up at Achilles. “Are you a sorcerer?” 

Achilles was taken aback. “A what?” 

“A sorcerer! One who does magic! I saw how you went over the wall that day of the attack. And you always have gold pebbles instead of coins.”

“Is that what sorcerers do?” Achilles asked, puzzled. He hadn’t heard this word before.

“I don’t know,” Dru said honestly, “they do magic.”

Achilles wasn’t sure what magic was, so he just shrugged.

“Can you start fires with your mind?” The boy asked.

Now Achilles laughed out loud. “No. Why?”

“The aunts say you’re an angel, and some angels have flaming swords, but you don’t. And sorcerers can make fire. I say you’re a sorcerer. But if you can’t, maybe you’re just an angel.” Dru sounded disappointed.

Achilles tipped his head, puzzled. “Where do you hear these things?”

“There’s an old man in the village who tells stories. He has a strange accent. He used to live in the north, way far north where it’s cold. Have you ever tried to start fire with your mind?” Dru pressed.

Achilles shook his head in wonderment. 

“You should try,” the boy said earnestly. “I’ve tried. I’ve tried to do lots of things. I try to move things by thinking about them, I try to light candles with my finger, I tried to fly once, off the top of the stables. Before they burned. But I landed really hard and I couldn’t breathe for a while.”

Achilles was laughing now. He’d forgotten what boys were like. “We better get you off the farm before you kill yourself. So were you able to move things with your mind?”

“No.” Dru said. “Well, once. I stared at the cat and it ran away.”

Achilles rubbed his brow. “Smart cat.”

“They’re coming back now,” Dru pointed. “When can I go on the ship?”

“Soon,” Achilles opined. “Can you swim?”

The boy nodded eagerly, then frowned. “Why?”

“In case it sinks,” Achilles told him seriously.

Dru took another look at the ship, as if thinking this over. Then he saw the warrior was smiling at him. He grimaced. “I still want to go.”

Achilles clapped him on the shoulder and returned to walk down the dock and greet Karan one more time as he climbed out of the fishing boat. Xander waited to ferry Achilles back with him. 

When Karan reached him, he could see that much of his joy at seeing them was subdued now. His eyes met Achilles’ only briefly, and then dropped again.

The warrior reached out with a hand and touched his kind Hector on the arm. “What?”

“Nothing,” Karan shook his head. “The ship is wonderful. Especially the cabin.”

Karan looked at him quickly and dropped his eyes again. Suddenly Achilles realized; he’d seen the bed, marked that there was only one bed, and made the correct assumption.

Achilles didn’t know what to say. 

“It’s alright. I knew it would happen,” Karan said quietly.

“Nothing has happened,” Achilles lied. Then he cursed himself for it, because if he was indeed serious about not interfering in Karan’s marriage, assuring him that his angel was burning with frustrated faithfulness was not the way to focus Karan on his wife. But as far as Xander knew, nothing had happened. 

Karan gave him an unreadable look. “It would be none of my business,” he said softly, and then took Achilles’ hand and pressed it briefly. “I’ll see you both tomorrow night at sundown.”

Then, with his sweet smile, he gave his angel one last wistful look, and went to shore where Dru and the horses awaited him.


	6. Candles

When evening came, Xander stirred up the coals out in the brazier again, and Achilles took the lantern and went down into the cool, dark hold where they’d stored the food. He could hear the water lapping against the hull. On an impulse, he touched the wick of the nearest candle in his finger, and thought: _fire._

Nothing. 

He tried again, staring at it, and pinching the wick between finger and thumb. _Fire. Fire. Firefirefirefire!_

Nothing.

With a grimace, he picked up the ham, cheese, and bread, and went back up the stairs.

They sat again, letting the ham warm up, while tearing off chunks of bread and cheese. There was something very freeing about not having a table, or servants, or women around, Achilles thought. 

Xander passed him a chalice of wine. “It’s from Uncle Jorges’ vineyard,” he said rather proudly.

Achilles tasted it. “It’s good,” he said.

“It’s not bad. So… tell me more stories from the books you brought. How long did the Trojan War last? I heard it was years and years,” Xander said casually.

Achilles gave a scoff. “No. Weeks is closer. But legends and stories, you know.”

“How do you know?” Xander asked him.

“…In Thessaly there are people who have family that passed down the stories… their versions are different from Homer’s. Undoubtedly more accurate,” Achilles improvised. 

“What was Paris like?” Xander asked, turning the ham over quickly with his fingers and then licking them to cool them off.

“Young. Handsome in a Boy Poet sort of way. Curly hair, big smile. Kind of skinny. Eager. Had hungry eyes and needed attention.” Achilles sighed, remembering. “Loved women. Loved his family too, but... He was not a calculating type, but definitely a child who grabbed at whatever he wanted.”

Achilles felt the ham was warm enough now, and tore off a chunk to eat.

“What was King Priam like?”

Achilles paused, and then said, “he was a good king in many ways. He cared about his country, cared about his sons. But he believed too much in the gods. The old gods, I mean. And he didn’t listen to his son. He should have.” Achilles bit into his ham, chewed, and swallowed.

Xander waited till he’d eaten a few bites and washed it down with more wine. Finally, he asked what he’d been waiting to ask.

“What was Hector like?”

There was a pause, and then Achilles smiled faintly over at him. “Like you.”

“How’s that?” 

Achilles gave a short laugh. “He looked like you.” Then his smile faded and he just stared at nothing.

“So, he looked like me. And Karan,” Xander clarified, watching Achilles closely. His benefactor seemed to have slipped into a trance.

“What was his character, though? His manner?”

For a long time, it was as though the other didn’t hear the question. He merely stared into the night, face blank. Xander was just about to ask again, when finally Achilles blinked, and stirred a bit.

“With those he loved, he was like Karan. With those he didn’t, he was a bit more like you,” he finally said, rather absently.

Xander nodded. His theory about Achilles was developing apace.

“The poem states that Hector was killed by Achilles. The original Achilles,” he added.

Achilles shook his head no, and settled into silence again for another long stretch. Then he inhaled.

“No. Not true at all. Achilles and Hector left Troy together.”

“I thought they were enemies?” Xander was mentally altering his theory now.

“…Sometimes when enemies get to know one another, they…” Achilles trailed off.

Xander waited, but Achilles seemed to have gone still again.

“Legend has it they both died in Troy,” he finally prodded.

Achilles gave a soft scoff. “Legend. Imagine becoming a legend only to find they got everything wrong.”

“So, where did they go?” Xander asked.

“Hector changed his name to Aeneas and we—they found a small village on a hill in what used to be called Hesperia. It was in need of protection from gangs of bandits.”

“Did they build a wall around it?” Xander asked, pouring more wine.

“Oh no, that’s a lot of work for a village. And if you build a wall, you limit how much the city can grow. No, what you do for a village,” Achilles gestured toward the lights in the windows of the whitewashed buildings clustered on the rising hills nearby, “like here, is you organize fighters. Train them a little. Establish ways to communicate a threat… we used horns, but nowadays, church bells and of course, signal fires will work.”

Achilles settled into silence again, staring at the coals glowing in the brazier. It was dark about them now, and the breeze was growing cool.

“So what ever happened to Hector, in the end?” Xander asked.

As he watched, the warrior swallowed and scowled, and then blinked several times and looked about him as if distracted. One foot began rotating restlessly. Finally he rose from his chair and set his chalice on the deck.

“I’m going to go work on our list of things we want to say tomorrow at that dinner,” he said, and went into the cabin, leaving Xander alone on the main deck to eat, drink wine, and speculate.

In the cabin, Achilles searched moodily around for a flint. He should have brought the lantern, but he didn’t want to leave Xander out there in the dark. When he couldn’t find one, he sat down discontentedly at the table in the shadows, and stared at the unlit candle.

Then he reached up and pinched it between his finger and thumb again.

_Fire. Fire. Fire, you cursed stump, fire._

Nothing. He drummed his fingers and narrowed his eyes. How did his mother do it? The handmaids always kept one fire burning to light the others with, but surely it went out from time to time. Were they so skilled with flint and sulfur? 

Flint and sulfur. He thought about the smell of sulfur for a long moment, and then lifted his hand thoughtfully and pinched the candle again. He imagined the burning of sulfur in his nose. A sensation of heat against his fingers made him release the wick quickly, and to his sudden interest, a red light appeared at the wick’s tip, and then grew and lengthened into a flame.

Achilles sat up straight, diverted from his wistful memories of Hector and long ago. He’d done it! He looked around, rather sorry no one was there to admire him. Then he rose and went to another candle, and inhaled the imaginary sulfur through his nostrils again. _Breathe. Pinch. Sulfur… Hot!_ He released it, shaking his hand a bit. His fingertips were a bit red, and he licked them and blew on them, and then admired his candles.

Cheerful now, he went to the third candle and used his other hand. Yes, it worked just as well. He was an ambidextrous firestarter! He moved to the next one. This was almost as much fun as the gong!

Suddenly, Xander appeared in the doorway. He blinked and looked around at the candles burning in the cabin. “How did you do that without the lantern?” He sniffed at the air. “Have you got a bag of sulfur along with your bag of gold?”

Achilles just stood, uncertain exactly how much he should reveal to Xander. Karan would be awestruck and admiring. Xander might just try to toss him off the boat.

He nodded, his eyes roving around the room absently.

Xander lowered his head toward him suspiciously, and looked about to speak, but Achilles interrupted him. 

“We should get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll want to go back to the widow’s and make ourselves presentable. Perhaps buy something to bring to the dinner.”

Xander was glowering at him now. “You lit every candle in this cabin so that we could go to sleep?”

Achilles stood with his lips parted, not sure what to say.

Shaking his head, Xander went back out to heat water for cleaning up, and Achilles turned back to the nearest candle and concentrated on it.

_Out. Out. Stop. Down…Quench... Water… Cold? Dust? Smother? DIE!_

Xander stood by the brazier, watching Achilles through the open door. He was staring intensely into the candle’s flame as if communicating with it. He stared for a very long time. Finally he scowled and blew it out.

Xander shook his head again. He was getting very close to believing that his patron was a two thousand year old god who roamed the Earth looking for his Hector, which was probably ridiculous, but… Xander picked up the pot of hot water and brought it into add to the cold water in their bowl.

They cleaned up in silence and then crawled into the bed. Achilles still looked uncharacteristically distracted. 

Xander lay on his back with one arm behind his head for a moment, and then turned to look at his companion.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” He asked, not challengingly, but probingly.

“No,” Achilles said, and put a hand on his beloved’s forehead. “Sleep.”


	7. Dinner

Achilles lay awake, wondering if his sleeping spell would produce another night of Lusty Xander, but to his mild disappointment, it did not. He told himself it was for the best, and not to complicate matters by doing—or allowing—more activities in the night that his suspicious Hector might be extremely offended by if he remembered them in the morning.

Although the silent vow didn’t stop him from passing the little pot of oil under his companion’s nose as he slept, purely as an experiment. But still, no. Not tonight.

_For the best,_ he told himself again, guiltily. He could still feel a bit of discomfort from his first experience at being on the other end of the oil, so to speak.

The next day they rose and went about their business without incident. They gathered their notes and lists, and rowed to the dock, and then walked along the beach and up the cobbled streets to the widow’s lodgings to make themselves ready.

Achilles even got Xander to wear the red robes over his freshly laundered, finely woven white tunic. And he had long since bought him a pair of thick-laced sandals for dress wear. 

“How is it that a warrior knows how to braid hair?” Xander asked him, as Achilles stood behind him, and with deft fingers made him presentable.

_First, you live on an island for years with your beloved…_ Achilles thought, and did not answer for a moment. When he finished, he put a gentle hand on his love’s back, up on the powerful muscle that flowed from his full neck to his shoulder.

“It’s just like splicing rope, really,” he said quietly. Out of Xander’s view, Achilles carefully put his nose to the freshly cleaned and oiled braid and inhaled, eyes closed.

Xander turned slowly and faced him, head down, that fine yet bold nose very close to his own.

“One day, you are going to tell me everything,” he said, his dark eyes wide and serious, and it sounded rather commanding.

Tingles ran down Achilles’ arms, and a bit of a flush came to his cheeks. Commanding Hector was startlingly effective. An unwilling smile came to his full lips, and he stepped back carefully, eyes modestly down.

Xander felt like his temperature was rising a bit, and he admired his companion’s strong, tanned arms. Powerful though Achilles might be, Xander had the definite feeling that he could presume a great deal upon the warrior, and that power would not be used against him. The realization made him feel just a bit… interested in becoming presumptuous.

Then he inhaled and turned away. This was not the time for such ruminations. They had business to attend to, and they would be in Karan’s house tonight. Determinedly, Xander turned his mind to his plans for the village. He intended to become an important figure here in Rhamnus, and to do it in his own way.

***

The family dinner was a great success, from Achilles’ point of view. The long table was full of men, and the uncles and cousins from the extended family were both serious and boisterous. 

The women did not attend, except for a few to help Zoe in the kitchen. She gave Achilles a cordial nod when he and Xander arrived. It seemed she liked Achilles a bit better when she was not pregnant and he was not living there. She’d recovered well, Achilles noted, and found that he was mostly at peace with his decision. 

“We can supply a man for your venture,” said one of the uncles, nodding agreeably. 

“I know the family of Ezio would too. You know, Ezio! Up on the north side, with the olive trees.”

_Ezio, olive trees,_ Achilles jotted down on the paper by his plate. 

“And Niles, with all the cattle!”

“Oh, yes, Niles, he’d better. He’s got a lot to lose, has Niles!”

“Tell him your daughter’s dowry depends on it! What? Oh come on, I know his boy is sweet on her.”

“Oh yes! Ha! Yes, he’d better!”

“And his brother Orrin—just a shepherd? Have you seen his flock lately? He’s got—oh, he’s got plenty, he can spare a man one day a week.”

Achilles wrote the names down quietly, blue eyes occasionally lifting to check on his Hectors. Xander was trying to maintain a calm demeanor, but his warrior could tell how much this meant to him, that the men of his father’s family were treating him as an equal, and not as an unwanted beggar. He sat alert, his eyes going from face to face watchfully, gauging their every reaction to him.

Karan, meanwhile, was relaxed in his chair at the head of the table. He was watching Achilles write down the names, thinking that he was a remarkably unobtrusive scribe for a beautiful blond angel who could walk through fire, and lift men over his head, and kill with both hands. Achilles glanced at him to see the soft smile his host had for him. Their eyes met for a moment, and the warrior could feel the warming in his stomach. 

Once Xander’s plan was canvased and approved, and several names gotten down, talk turned to their own concerns, and Xander was savvy enough to keep quiet and listen. He asked the occasional question, and nodded along. But his eyes were always moving. Yes, it was very clear to Achilles how long he’d been alone, and how much that early rejection had wounded him.

The dinner could have lasted long into the night, but it had grown overcast in the afternoon, so the night would be dark, and the air smelled like rain. The party disbanded at a reasonable hour, and Achilles found himself alone with Karan in the torch-lit courtyard, briefly, after the other guests had left. 

“I’ve had your old room made up,” he said, with a passing touch to his angel’s arm. “Shall I… direct my brother there as well?”

“No,” Achilles said. “He would very much prefer his own room, I am sure.”

Hope brightened Karan’s eyes briefly, but he only nodded and turned away. But oh, that look before he turned away. Achilles could feel the tension leaving his back at the very thought of wrapping his arms around his loving Hector. He closed his eyes for a moment, bowing his head.

Karan looked back at him, admiring how the firelight played on the long blond hair as it lay over the curve of his back. He was a happy man, over all. He had a good wife, and a little son, and a fine estate. But he had missed his angel. It was like an ache in his chest, not a horrible or crippling one, but a small, nagging one. He’d been quite happy before Achilles had come into his life. But now that he knew of the angel’s existence, being happy again without him was not easy. He went to his wife to direct her to make up the other spare room for Xander.


	8. Quiet Conversation

Achilles retired early, intent upon giving the brothers more time together. 

“So will you send messages to all the men on that list?” Karan asked, as they sat alone at the long dining table, finishing the last of their wine. Most of the candles were blown out now. The servants and Zoe had gone to bed. The house was quiet.

“I was hoping you would do that,” Xander said. “You have servants to carry the messages. You know where to find these men. They know you, and will respond. And besides, I wouldn’t be able to read their replies.”

“Why not?” Karan asked.

Xander looked at him. “I can’t read.”

Karan froze and stared at him in horror. “What?”

“I was never taught.”

“Our mother didn’t teach you, didn’t hire tutors for you, didn’t…?”

“Nothing.” Xander looked down into his wine. “She did nothing.”

Karan sat back in his chair. “I don’t understand!”

Xander’s finger tapped thoughtfully on the chalice. “She hated our father, I am convinced. Her revenge was to make sure his firstborn was an illiterate savage.”

Karan inhaled deeply. “My God. I had no idea.” His face grew dark with disgust. “What was wrong with her??”

Xander gave a short laugh. “I don’t know. In many ways, I never knew her. She rarely spoke to me, although she stared at me quite a bit.”

Karan looked as though he was afraid to ask the next question. “Did she… hurt you? Were you beaten?”

“Oh no,” Xander said calmly. “Nothing like that. She just let me run wild, offered me nothing, and just before she died, let me know that there was much I could have had, but I would never have it.”

Karan looked away, overwhelmed. 

“You realize now, how lucky you were?” Xander added wryly, watching his brother’s reactions. He could see the emotions flitting over his twin’s face.

After a moment, Karan turned back to him, and opened his mouth as if he would speak, but then he hesitated, worry knitting up his brow.

Xander gave another amused huff. Their eyes met.

“You want to ask if there is anything you can do to make up for what I’ve lost, but you’re afraid I’ll tell you.”

Karan looked mortified, and then laughed unwillingly. “Perhaps, a bit.”

Xander smile was bittersweet. “I don’t want this land. I thought I did, thought about it for years. But once I was finally on it, looking about, I realized… I don’t know the first thing about working it. That’s something one learns over a lifetime. You’ve learned it. I never did.”

Karan bowed his head modestly, and lifted his soft eyes up again. He very much wanted to help his brother, but he was relieved to finally be assured, clearly, to his face, that Xander felt this way.

“I like having a ship.” Xander continued. “I like being on the water. But if you can help me in little ways, like helping find our first eight crew members, gathering them here early on Saturday, walking them down to the dock…”

“Of course,” Karan said eagerly.

“And sometimes… Most of the time I’m happy to live on the ship, but when I’m ashore, a couple days a week, or even less, if I could stay here—“

“Yes, yes, you and Achilles are always welcome here!” Karan assured him.

“I ask only for myself.” Xander said, lifting his eyebrows as if making a serious point. “Achilles is his own concern. He usually stays at the widow’s in town… I don’t even know her name… but he rents from her. He seems to always have money, but I don’t, so…”

Karan’s face looked more open than ever. “Achilles stays in town? Not… not with you on the ship?”

Xander knew exactly what his brother was thinking. “A couple nights he has because he’s worried about me fending for myself if anyone tried to steal the ship, but mostly he stays in town.”

Karan nodded, obviously contemplating the possibility that his angel was still his.

“But speaking of him,” Xander leaned forward and lowered his voice, “who do you think he is, really? Why does he help us?”

Karan lowered his voice as well. “I think he’s an angel. He’s… not an average human, that is for certain.”

Xander glanced toward the dark hallway that led to the guest rooms. Outside, the wind picked up, and the first faint sprinkles of rain could be heard pattering on the roof and the stone of the courtyard.

“You were educated. Did you read the legends of Homer?” 

Karan nodded, eyes searching that face that was so similar to his own.

“What did it say of Achilles?” Xander asked. “The original Achilles?”

Karan thought about it. “Great warrior, very powerful… but he died. He died in Troy.”

Xander pointed in the direction of the guest room where the warrior even now slept. “He says that Achilles did not kill Hector, that they left Troy together… I think he meant that they were lovers.”

Karan looked as though this were the most unlikely thing he’d ever heard. 

Xander stared intently at his twin. “He also says… that Hector looked like us.”

Karan sat and thought about this. “How would he know?”

Xander didn’t answer. He just stared at his brother and waited for him to catch up.

When Karan started shaking his head slowly, Xander added, “and now he’s here, helping us, for no apparent reason, wanting nothing in return other than to be with one of us or the other…”

Karan’s mouth opened and stayed that way for a moment. Then he said, “when I first found him and brought him home, he did nothing but sleep for days. Aunt Sophie said he was… she thought he was willing himself to die. She thought he’d lost someone he loved.”

Xander nodded. “I asked him what happened to Hector, and he couldn’t speak.”

“For days, he wouldn’t eat. He only started to come back to life after the fire in the stables. Oh, and if you had seen that…!”

“Yes,” Xander murmured, and it was clear that to him, the mystery was nearly solved.

The twins sat in silence in the feeble light of the last two candles. The scent of the rain was thick and heady, rolling in from the courtyard.

Finally, Xander stood and put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I’m going to bed.” He paused, and then squeezed Karan’s shoulder tighter. “Thank you for this evening. I am grateful.”

Karan nodded absently, and put a hand on his brother’s hand. “I’m glad it went well. I’ll handle the notes if you’ll give me the list.”

Xander nodded too. “I shall. Good night.” He took one candle and disappeared down the corridor to the guest rooms.

Karan stayed at the table for quite a while, listening to the rain. If Achilles was _… no… impossible… but if he was real, he…_ the idea stuttered to a halt in his mind. His Christian upbringing did not allow for pagan gods. Did it? Or could it be that they were real enough, but God replaced them with Jesus? That made little sense to Karan. Achilles being an angel made much more sense. Or could God have made those former gods into angels? Or… were they angels all along and the ancients had merely mistaken them for gods?! Now that made sense to Karan. Achilles was an angel, but he could very well have been an angel God sent to destroy Troy… if the story was real, which surely it wasn’t. Was it?

Suddenly, Karan stood, taking up the last candle. The house was quiet, but for the rain. He turned and made his way to his angel’s room, heart growing light and eager as it always had at the thought of Achilles.

When he reached the door, he pushed it open very slowly, seeing the faint glow from within. Then he stepped inside, gazing at the bed with his breath coming quickly between his lips. Achilles lay asleep, naked to the waist where the sheet was draped, his golden hair spread across the pillow. The candle, half-melted, still burned at his bedside, as if he had kept it lit, waiting for… one of them. But which one?


	9. Lovers

Karan entered quietly, and put his candle on the wash table by the door, adding to the light in the room. Then he went and sat on the side of the bed as he had done in days past.

As soon as his weight moved the bed, Achilles’ eyes opened, and his lips curved in a gentle smile. 

“Do you know which one I am?” Karan whispered with an answering smile.

“Karan,” Achilles whispered back, and their eyes were unable to leave each other. For a moment, the rain outside was the only sound.

“May I stay?” Karan smiled wider, and tipped his head that way that Hector had always done, when he was happy. 

Achilles remembered the first time his Hector had looked at him that way, when the envoy from Smyrna had come, and the two of them consulted in Achilles’ room. Sitting up, he took his Hector’s hand and brought it to his lips.

“Please stay,” he breathed, gazing at the beloved face, the pale skin against the dark, close beard, the pink lower lip, and most of all, those black eyes that could be so soft and warm.

His Hector turned and wrapped his arms around the warrior, and they sank onto the bed together, faces buried in each other’s neck, inhaling the long-missed scents. Karan found himself rubbing his whiskers gently against his angel’s cheek. He could feel his lover’s hands sliding the tunic away from his shoulders, and he released Achilles long enough to shed his sandals and clothing.

They came together under the sheet, and Karan put his hands on either side of his angel’s head for a moment, feeling the silken blond hair under his palms. Achilles’ face drew him just as powerfully as it had from the beginning: the inscrutable eyes, the square, fine jaw, the incredibly lush, pale pink lips… Kissing those lips felt like making a promise, and Karan promised over and over... what he was promising, he did not enumerate to himself. But he promised, and he promised, and he promised until his insides were alive with it.

Tangling their legs together was just a furtherance of the embrace of their arms, which were caressing and gripping one another in a restless, loving search for more and closer contact. And they could feel one another’s arousal. They moved to touch themselves together, and then to press, and then to rub.

“Wait,” Achilles breathed, reaching for a pot of oil.

“Always,” Karan smiled, watching his lover coat his fingers with it, catching the heady scent of it in his nose. “Oh, that scent…”

Achilles reached down and took Karan’s cock in hand, enjoying the heavy, firm weight of it. He stroked the sensitive flesh, watching his love’s straight brows lower in concentration as he reveled in the teasing touch, mindful of how quiet they must be. But it was hard, he knew, for his Hector to keep silent while one hand stroked his shaft down to the base, and up to the tip, and swept a slick thumb over the head. Very hard to keep quiet when the other hand tangled in his dark curls and pulled just hard enough to send a shiver down his spine… and Achilles was an expert now in pleasing his Hector.

The rain poured down harder as if trying to help mask their rustling undulations.

Soon they were slick and hard, and rubbing against one another in a slow, luxurious grind. Karan wanted to gaze into the blue eyes while he moved against his lover, but it was a struggle to keep his own eyes open. The sensations overwhelmed him, but more than that, the emotions; whatever Achilles was, angel or god, he was something rare and wonderful, and he was in Karan’s arms, allowing him to touch that perfect golden skin. Karan closed his eyes to revel in the feeling of the warm muscular form against him, to feel the power of those arms around his waist, those hands squeezing at his skin. Then he opened them again, wanting to see the look in his lover’s eyes.

Even as they were gradually building towards their climax together—very slowly, as if neither wanted to come—the thought darted through his head: had this man come to him deliberately? Not merely a lost soul washed up on his shore, but a being who came to help them, and protect them, and love them?

Karan reached down and grabbed a handful of firm buttock, pulling his angel closer. Achilles’ mouth fell open and those strange blue eyes closed. His head fell back, exposing that long column of tanned throat, and Karan worshipped it fervently with his mouth and tongue and teeth, even as he rode against his lover harder, gripping him tight to squeeze their flushed, pulsing cocks between them and increase the friction. They were moving faster now, and faster, until Achilles’ hips jerked in powerful but uncoordinated thrusts, and Karan suddenly felt a savage glee that this mysterious being was coming at his urging. He thrust back, gathering the twisting haunches in his hands and forcing them to buck against his own oiled flesh.

Finally their bodies stiffened in ecstasy against one another, straining, eyes closed, hands gripping harshly, breath stopped to keep silent. The long exhalations that finally signaled their release left them as the last shudders of pleasure rippled through them, and let them grow pliant again. Gradually they became aware again, of the candlelight, and the rain outside, and the pillows under their heads.

Tired now, they petted one another, smiles curving their lips.

Then Karan put his lips to his angel’s ear. “I adore you… I _adore_ you.” He squeezed Achilles as tightly to him as he could, and thus did not see the startled blue eyes fill with tears. He only heard a sniff or two, and felt those mighty arms—but how careful they could be—embrace him back.

“My love,” he heard faintly.

They lay like that until their breath evened out.

Finally, they pulled apart long enough to towel off the moisture they’d released, and arrange themselves in an embrace more compatible with sleep. Achilles loved to be on his back with a Hector draped over him, and Karan threw a leg over his warrior’s thighs to ensure he didn’t escape in the night.

They caressed each other’s arms and shoulders until their movements grew slower and slower, and they drifted off in a contented sleep.


	10. Maiden Voyage

Saturday morning was a brilliant morning. The sky had just a few white clouds to make a contrast of the blinding blue, and the breeze was soft. The _Hector_ swayed as one by one, the eight men who comprised her first skeleton crew climbed up the ladder and clambered aboard, and looked around as if surprised to find themselves aboard a Saracen pirate ship. 

Soon, Xander was at the bow of the ship in his new white tunic, gazing out at the horizon. Achilles was stationed at the other end, facing the eight men, whom he’d positioned on evenly distributed benches, four on each side facing aft, widely spaced. Karan was on the main deck above, in front of the cabin, watching proceedings with wide eyes. He was dressed in deep blue, wanting to be sure the crewmen didn’t confuse him with their new Captain. And Dru was darting about like a dragonfly.

“Stay out of the way,” Karan warned him.

“I thought I was going to man the sail!” the boy accused.

Achilles gave him a look of subdued amusement. “First let’s see if you get seasick.” Then he turned to the men. “I hope you remembered leather gloves.”

Those who had, donned them immediately. One who didn’t looked at his hard hands and shrugged. He spent most days shoveling his master’s stable. Probably, oars wouldn’t be much different.

“Now, these two men—“ Achilles pointed to the two rowers furthest aft, “—are your guides. You should be moving at the same time as the man in front on your side. If he drops and draws back, you drop and draw back. You do what he does, when he does it.”

The men nodded. The warrior looked past them to his captain. “Anchor’s up,” he confirmed.

Xander looked back and exchanged a nod with Achilles.

“Underway,” Xander announced, and Achilles turned his attention toward the men.

“Alright, first position, arms straight, inner hand higher.” He walked between them and paused to tap one fellow on the shoulder. “Higher, like this.”

When they were ready, he returned to the forward end so all could see him. 

“Remember what I told you: pull, pull, down, push. Don’t come back up until you’re all the way out again. Then you are at first positions again. Ready? And… pull! Pull! Down! Push…… no, don’t come up…. Now come up. Pull! Pull!”

It was slow going at first. The ship barely moved. Then men’s eyes grew wide; this was more effort than they’d realized! _Pull, pull, down, puuuush UP—Pull! Pull! Down… puuuuush UP—Pull!_

Suddenly, Dru let out a yip of excitement. “We’re moving!! We’re moving!!” he danced up and down at the rail, staring at the village as they edged away from the beach.

The men all grinned at the boy’s excitement, and the rowers put a bit more back in it. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the ship moved into the waves and glided slowly forward. The men watched their lead rower, and tried to match their movements with his. Achilles kept up a cadence for them.

“Pull-pull-down-push…. Pull-pull-down-push…”

Once they’d picked up momentum, it seemed to become easier, and the rowers became accustomed to the rhythm. 

Then Xander directed his face to the wind, ascertained where it was, and turned and hauled up the smaller of the two sails. Grabbing the line at each corner, he drew them together as if they were the reins of a horse, and watched as the wind blew it bellyful toward him.

Karan went to Dru and gave him a tap on the arm. “Watch,” he pointed at Xander. “Watch what he does.”

They all watched as Xander pulled on one side and loosened the other, and the ship gave a gentle turn and continued out onto the open sea.

Once they were well away from the village, Xander called, “And halt!”

Achilles held his hands up to the rowers, and they stopped, letting the ship drift on nothing but the breeze.

“You can get up and look around,” Achilles told them. “But when I say _man your stations,_ back you get as quick as you can.”

The men stood, shaking out their already-tired hands, and went to the rails, gazing around with astonishment at the sight of them, out to sea. Oh, it was a bright morning! The blue waves peaked and danced around them, splashing white caps. Seagulls cruised nearby, emitting their high-pitched, piercing cries.

The men were dazzled at the sun on the water. Water, all around them! And the gentle rocking of the boat seemed much more pronounced now that they were away from the waterfront.

“We’ll let them enjoy just drifting for a while,” Xander said, when Achilles and Karan joined him. “I’ll let the boy main the sail, and work with him. After a bit, we’ll want to practice turns, just one each way. Then we’ll take her back and pay them. I want their first go to be short, easy, enjoyable. I want them to want to come back. Perhaps even speak of it to others, see if they can recruit for us.”

“How far up the coast is the next village?” Achilles asked, squinting in the sunshine.

“See there, where the land comes well out into the water?” Karan pointed. “There’s another village just on the other side of that.”

“Is that Oropus?” Xander asked.

“No, that’s more inland. Here, is Boe.”

Achilles looked behind him. “What’s in the other direction?”

“It’s the Euboean Strait. Pretty enough, but no pirates are going to come from that direction,” Karan said.

“There is a channel back out to the sea at the far end, though, isn’t there?” Xander turned to look, shading his eyes with his hand.

“Yes…” Karan conceded, “but it’s very narrow. I’d be surprised if pirates found their way through there.”

Achilles stood between his Hectors, feeling more contented than he had since Hermenegild had left him. To be making love to either of them was succor to his hungry soul, but to be in the presence of them both, standing close together in companionable converse, was like being wrapped in soft blankets. The ship rocked gently beneath him. He felt the breeze blow his hair away from his neck, and the sun on his back, and he blinked slowly.

Xander and Karan ceased their conversation and regarded him, each thinking of how like a statue he was just now. He barely seemed to breathe, and his eyes did not seem to be seeing. Then Xander looked at Karan meaningfully. _You see?_

Dru broke the spell. “Are you going to let me man the sail?” He was going up and down on his toes with impatience, and Xander led him away from the rail to let him gather up the taglines and learn about steering, and rope burn.

By late morning, the Hector had completed her initial maneuvers, and was moving back to her unofficial berth. Rowing back was harder, for no breeze aided them, and Xander ordered the sail lowered. Dru, eyes triumphant, lowered it himself and tied off the lines on either side.

“Well done,” Karan told him. “I’m afraid you won’t be content herding the sheep much longer.”

Dru looked as though he wanted to say exactly what he thought of herding sheep, but had been rapped on the head enough times by his uncle Cole to finally learn the fine art of not disparaging his job to his boss. 

Karan smiled and turned his face to the vibrant blue sea again. It was beautiful. He loved his estate, but an occasional turn out on the water was refreshing indeed. And to be on his brother’s ship, in amity and peace. He looked back at his twin and his angel. Amazing how his life had changed since both them had entered it. 

When they were finally back within rowing distance of the dock, Achilles lowered the anchor, feeding the chain out with his hands through the hawse hole. He didn’t notice how the men stared at the ease with which he lowered the heavy weight. When he finished, Xander hailed a fisherman to row out and ferry them back to the dock.

“Here is your pay for a good morning’s work,” Achilles announced, giving each a gold pebble from his purse. “Next Saturday, if you come back and bring a friend to join, you’ll get a finder’s fee for your recruiting skills. And make sure they bring leather gloves,” he said, giving a pointed look to the one fellow who’d forgotten his. That one grinned ruefully. His hands were stinging. 

But it was a cheery group that the fisherman ferried back, five of the crew with Xander, who would come back shortly with his own boat for Karan, Dru, and the other three crewmen.

“How are your hands?” Karan asked the boy.

“Fine,” he insisted, hiding them.

Achilles went quietly to the cabin and got one of his lesser used pots of salve, and brought it back out to give a dab to the boy, and a dab to the gloveless fellow, who took it without any pretense at hardiness. 

Karan followed him back to the cabin. “You seem at home on a ship,” he said casually.

“I’ve done my time,” Achilles admitted, turning to admire his Hector as he leaned against the doorframe. He was wearing the sort of blue his first Hector often wore, and the tunic revealed the swelling muscles of his chest as he folded his arms.

“How old are you?” Karan asked suddenly, head tipped inquisitively, wide dark eyes searching.

Achilles’ brow lowered a bit in puzzlement and he looked down as if searching for the answer. “I don’t know.”

Karan’s head came forward a bit. “You don’t know??”

The warrior’s face cleared and the blue eyes came back to him. “No.”

Karan looked behind him to see that no one else was close enough to hear him. “But you have some idea, don’t you?”

Achilles’ look became evasive. “Some, yes.”

Karan lowered his voice. “What are you, really?”

Achilles shook his head. “I don’t know anymore.” Then he smiled faintly. Karan stared at that full lower lip, loving it.

“When do you think you both will come back to the compound?” Karan asked, having told himself he would not ask.

“I don’t know. Probably at the end of the week, to make plans for our first run up the coast. Your brother wants to start building a network of sorts with the surrounding villages. Do you think you’d like to come? Just a day trip.”

Karan was already nodding, an eager smile lighting up his face. 

“Xander’s back,” Dru trotted up to inform them. He’d enjoyed his sailing adventure tremendously, but now he was hungry.

Karan turned to answer the summons, and Achilles reached out to put his hand on one of those full, round shoulders he loved. “I’ll be with you soon,” he said quietly.

His Hector gave him another of those longing looks that made the embers low in his belly stir up. Then his beloved was over the rail, going down the ladder—much more confidently now—to return to his home, and his wife, and his child.


	11. Midnight Oil

“To our maiden voyage,” Xander said, lifting his chalice. 

Achilles lifted his as well and tapped it to his companion’s. The two had settled back into their comfortable mode of dining: meat on the brazier, fruit on the platter, bread in their hands. Sunset provided the entertainment, and the sloshing of the waves on the hull supplied the music.

“Next week we’ll make another run,” Xander said. “If even half of those fellows bring another, we can make good time, and they’ll teach the new ones what to do. I’d like to get within sight of Boe. Let them see the _Hector._ ” 

Achilles listened to him, feeling a slight stab in his chest when Xander said that name. Yet, there was no other name he would have chosen. He looked over at his companion, lounging contentedly in his wooden chair, long, well-shaped calves on graceful display.

“Do you have bad dreams?” He asked suddenly.

Xander gave him a speculative look. “You asked me that before.”

“Do you? Do you ever dream of… something burning? Something you care about?”

“Not that I remember,” Xander said. “I have dreams of being tortured from time to time, but—“

Achilles sat up a little. “Tortured how?”

“You want the details, do you?” Xander said, crimping up his brows.

“Is it your feet? Do you dream they do something to your feet?” Achilles asked alertly.

The humor left Xander’s face and he drew his feet close to him unconsciously. “How the hell do you know that?” His upper body turned toward Achilles and he stared with black, angry eyes. His lips thinned and deepened at the corners. Such a familiar look.

Achilles looked back at the coals glowing in the brazier, brooding. 

There was silence for a moment. Xander was still staring tensely at him in the gathering dusk.

“What happened to Hector?”

“He died!” Achilles snapped, not looking at him.

“And then what did you do?” Xander fired at him.

Achilles wasn’t sure what was the matter with him. He was happy when Hermenegild wanted to know things about the past. But now, he found himself not wanting to bring Xander up to date. Perhaps he didn’t trust how Hector’s more aggressive side would react. Or maybe it bothered him to relate how much time had passed, how many incarnations of Hector he’d shared his life with now. It might have been that he didn’t think Xander would actually believe, or would, but might be unhappy with the knowledge.

The warrior shook his head slightly, mostly in confusion at himself. For whatever reason, he no longer felt the urge to reveal the past to his Hector—either of them. He’d done it several times now. He was weary of it. He just wanted to be with whatever Hector fate granted him.

He remembered lying in Karan’s bed just weeks ago, exhausted, wanting only to say, _May I stay with you?_

Achilles sat forward, put his elbows on his knees, and buried his face in his hands. It felt to him as though his insides were full of pain. He had to breathe through his mouth for a moment.

Xander watched him closely, eyes running over the curved back, the blond hair that fell forward and hid him. Then he came to a decision. Achilles had come to him and to Karan, and placed himself at their disposal. But he obviously did not want to relive the events that brought him here, or explain any more about who they were to him. He felt the way he felt, and now he was here.

Had Xander wanted to explain anything to his family when he found them, and approached them? Not really. He’d found them, and he’d wanted them to say, _There you are, finally! Welcome home!_

“Alright,” he said, rising and putting a gentle hand on Achilles’ shoulder. “I won’t ask any more questions. I’m going to bed.”

He took the lantern, swigged down the last of his wine, and left the silent figure brooding on the main deck.

In the cabin, he used the lantern to light a single candle, and poured out some cold water to clean himself off with. He was suddenly tired. It had been a full day. He took a rag and wiped the sweat and salt from his body, and made himself clean enough to share a bed with. And he washed his feet, which, yes, he was protective of. Certainly there was a story there, but Achilles didn’t wish to tell it.

When he was finally ready, Xander wondered if Achilles was still curled like a grieving statue out on deck. He went naked to the door and looked out. Yes, in the moonlight he could see his companion.

Leaving behind the lantern, Xander went the few steps to the warrior and ran his hands down the muscular arms. “Come to bed.”

Achilles straightened up slowly, and Xander pulled him to his feet. “Come,” he repeated, and brought the warrior to the cabin.

Once inside, Xander released him and crawled naked into the bed. He watched as Achilles listlessly reached out, pinched the wick of another candle, and made it come to life.

Xander sat up and stared at the candle, distracted even from the sight of a god shedding his tunic and cleaning himself with another rag by the pitcher and bowl.

“How the hell did you—“ and then he remembered he’d promised not to ask more questions.

Laying back down, Xander rolled over to face the wall, allowing his companion to perform his more intimate ablutions with a bit of privacy. As he waited, he listed all the things he knew about Achilles that solidified the notions Xander had been nursing: he could start fires, walk _through_ fires, heal, was incredibly strong, and had a steady supply of gold that no one could account for.

Unlike Karan, Xander had not had a particularly Christian upbringing. The idea that the gods of old might actually have been real did not cause him cognitive dissonance. He merely speculated on it. Did he and Karan now have their own personal god?

Finally, Achilles came around to the foot of the bed and crawled in, also nude. He lay down with a tired sigh on his back and stared off at nothing. He’d left the candles and lantern burning.

Xander lay next to him, his gaze running over that youthful profile, the blond hair splayed out on the pillow. He reached over and tapped the warrior with the back of his hand. 

Achilles did not respond.

Xander turned and reached to the shelf at the head of the bed, picking up one of the larger pots of oil. “This is the potion you use on your skin, isn’t it?”

Achilles rolled his head toward him and nodded.

Xander opened the pot and smelled it. “My, isn’t this dear. I bet you smell like a Persian prince when you have this mix on you.”

Achilles gave a smirk and resumed staring at the overhead.

“I suppose where you’re from, a team of servants rubs you down with it every night.”

Achilles’ smirk deepened and he refused to answer.

“They probably fight with each other for the honor. Who gets to rub his lordship down tonight? I can just see them pulling each other’s hair.”

Xander sat up and poured a bit into his hand. 

“My hand feels more elegant already!” He mocked, putting the pot aside and rubbing his hands together. He smelled them. 

Then he looked down at Achilles, who was silently watching him. Pivoting around, he reached out and placed both hands on the thick muscles of the warrior’s smooth chest and began rubbing the oil into him.

The effect was immediate. The smirk disappeared and his eyes grew wide and soft. His lips parted and Xander could see his breath sped up. His arms spread open involuntarily, and as the warm hands smoothed and kneaded the skin of his chest and belly, he began blinking rapidly. His head fell back, offering his throat. His hands opened wide, as begging for something.

When Xander had begun, he was not entirely sure he would be allowed, but now his confidence surged; Achilles would allow him anything, he was increasingly certain. Coming up on his knees, he ran his warm, oiled hands down over the lean, defined divots of his god’s hips and groin, ignoring his burgeoning arousal. He could feel his own cock filling as well, as he stroked the satiny skin over the muscular frame. With serious mien, he poured a bit more oil into his hands and massaged it slowly and calmly into the thick, strong thighs, over the small, elegant knee joints, and down the sculpted calves to his ankles and feet.

Achilles lay gazing at him, lips parted, as if the sight of him was even more meaningful than the feeling of the hands on his skin. 

Xander rose from the bed. “Roll over. This way, here,” he ordered, wanting Achilles on the outer side of the bed. The candle and lantern were both on the table, and he didn’t want his own body blocking the light. He wanted to see every inch of the smooth, tanned skin in the candlelight, gleaming with oil.

Obediently, Achilles rolled over on his front, and Xander climbed over him to the inside of the bed, nearest the bulkhead. Now, he gazed at the feast laid out before him. Pouring another portion of oil into his cupped hand, he applied it to the wide golden back and rubbed it in slowly, relishing how the thick muscles slid under his hands. He brought his palms down to the slender waist, and then, dark eyes intent and pleased, over the round buttocks, caressing them with intimate fingers.

Achilles’ arms were up over his head. As Xander’s hands became bolder, his pliant recipient spread his legs invitingly, allowing the fingers to slide over the curves and into the creases below. Finally, Xander placed one hand on the muscular shoulder nearest him, and slid the fingers of his other hand into the hot cleft between them.

He heard the inhalation as he stroked deep, and focused on how the delicate skin felt under his fingertips. The sheer warmth of his god’s body was a revelation. Xander slid his fingers down and in, between the spread thighs, and back again, deep between those round globes. After a moment, he withdrew, reaching for the clay pot again.

“I want to put my fingers in you,” he said quietly, drizzling the oil onto his hand. “And then, I want to put my cock in you.”

He leaned down and put his lips to the ear beneath the long blond strands of hair. “What do you think of that?”

Achilles’ fingers curled into the pillow, but he didn’t move otherwise. “Do it, then,” he said in an equally quiet tone.

Having established exactly what he intended, Xander resumed his ministrations. He placed one hand firmly back on his lover’s shoulder and put the other to work. Watching his fingers slide into that crevice and then, first one, then two, disappear into that impossibly tight hole was only slightly more amazing than feeling of that ring of muscle squeezing them. He stroked in and out several times, watching as his god buried his face silently in the pillow. Xander added a third finger and Achilles groaned, flexing his shoulders and back in reaction. Satisfied that his god felt him, Xander slowly fucked him with his fingers for several long moments, watching the muscles in his back dance slowly under the skin as his lover writhed in reaction.

Finally, he withdrew carefully and slicked up his own hard cock, which had bobbed up to full attention as soon as he’d begun caressing those round buttocks. When he turned and mounted, straddling those thighs, Xander was aware of a feeling of remarkable lucidity, suddenly. This was no groping in the dark, no burying his face in some hiding place while searching blindly under the covers for pleasure. This was stepping up to the sacrificial altar, staring down at the offering with the candles dancing around it, and reaching out to lay claim. He leaned forward, brows drawn in concentration, and positioned himself. 

Slowly, he eased his way in, exhaling in throaty gasps at the sensation of slick, moist heat clamping down on his sensitive flesh. He pushed in further, and the gorgeous form beneath him shifted and arched, welcoming him in.

“Oh my god,” Xander breathed, losing his stoic demeanor. He lay full on Achilles, running his hands adoringly over the outstretched arms, up and down the lean ribs. 

Once again he was struck by the strange feeling of clarity. He was aroused, fiercely aroused, but he was not lost in lust. It was as if daylight filled his mind, and was pouring down on them both. 

Xander nuzzled his lover’s cheek, burying his nose in the blond hair for a moment. He could see Achilles’ eyes were shut tight, and his brow was knit. His mouth was open, but he made no sound. With a groan, Xander began thrusting, eyes drinking in his lover’s hair and profile, his shoulders and arms. He felt like he wanted to shout in guttural wordless cries. His throat was full of suppressed emotion.

“Over. Over, roll over,” he ordered huskily. Grappling the warrior onto his side, spooning him, Xander wrapped his arms around him and reached for his erection, stroking it in rhythm with his own thrusts.

_More oil. Now. Good._ He stroked tight and fast, and pounded from behind, feeling in Achilles’ responsive undulations, all the strength lurking in that body. Still there was this feeling of being wildly awake and alert, and something expanding in his gut as he slammed his hips against those buttocks, and fondled that cock as if it were his own.

Achilles was letting out strangled cries with every thrust, and Xander gloried in it, feeling as though he was handling lightning, controlling it, guiding it. Loving it. 

With a shout, he came, plowing hard into his lover, and froze, squeezing the hard cock in his hand, feeling it pulse and jerk as his mate came too.

In the aftermath, Xander clung to his god, with hands that were not particularly gentle. That feeling of bright light in his head was fading and his senses were returning to normal, although his breathing was still rapid and heavy. He squeezed Achilles tighter, and the warrior lay pliant and passive in his grasp, head lolling. 

Even as the lethargy from his release flooded his body, Xander could feel a slight agitation in his midsection, just below his ribs. He wanted to keep petting Achilles even after the act was complete. He was relaxed now, but still very awake.

Finally, Achilles stirred as if coming up from unconsciousness, and reached up in rather uncoordinated movements for a towel to wipe himself off with. 

They dried themselves in reflective silence. 

When they were civilized again, Xander smoothed back the blond hair. Then he got up to blow out the candle and douse the lantern. In the bed, Achilles rolled over on his back to regard him.

When Xander returned to the bed, he had to grope in the dark. When he was finally situated in the bed, he felt for Achilles.

“Come here,” he invited, and moved to slide his arm under his warrior’s neck. He pulled his bedmate into his arms and gathered him up in an embrace. “Come lie on top of me.”

Swallowing, Achilles did as he was bid, lying on Xander, shifting until they were both comfortable. His Hector pulled the pillow around to cushion the head that was tucked up under his jaw, and then settled into an affectionate embrace.

“You matter a great deal, somehow,” Xander muttered, holding Achilles close. “Now that I’m touching you, I can feel it, in my gut, that I have to keep touching you.” He felt almost anxious about it, and squeezed tighter.

Achilles closed his eyes in bliss and the last bit of tension left his body. He drifted off to sleep, letting the ship rock him, letting Xander stroke his hair and back. For the moment, it was enough to make him perfectly happy.


	12. Luke

Now came the task of building an armory and charting out what territory they’d commit themselves to guarding. Their division of labor was established quickly. 

“I’ll take care of the armory. I’ll set the orders for swords in motion, monitor the progress, meet with people. You study the maps, chart the areas you want to patrol. Pick a working map and when we go out, we’ll update it.” Achilles suggested.

When their small boat pulled up by the dock, Xander watched his god step up out of the boat and walk the dock to the beach. Then, he saw, Achilles squatted down and gathered up several small pebbles. He stood sorting them for a moment. Xander watched in interest as his warrior squeezed the pebbles in his hand, scowling in concentration, and then opened his palm to check on them. Apparently satisfied, he then dumped them into his purse and prowled away toward the village.

Xander sat back in his boat. _That’s how it works, then._ He shook his head. A bit of a shiver went down him. Achilles’ supply of gold had long represented to Xander the idea of connections; it meant he had someone who gave him that gold, an important family, a distant estate somewhere, or something. Some tie to someone, somewhere. 

But if Achilles could simply make gold, then he might be operating entirely alone. The thought made that agitated feeling grow in Xander’s chest. It was part awe, part possessiveness. _He’s ours, he thought. He came to us. So he’s ours. He doesn’t belong with anyone else._

Achilles, meanwhile, was padding up the beach, admiring how pristine it was. All traces of the Saracen attack had been cleaned away. The Saracen dead had been burned, the bones taken to the village dump, and the ashes raked into the sand. The Christian dead were buried in an inland cemetery north of town. Veering up the beach, he headed for the cobble street where the turning point of the battle had taken place. The village men still tended to linger here, weeks and weeks later, to point to this spot or that and say, “There is where Estevan fell. There is where I killed a pirate. There is where my brother was wounded.”

Now he approached one group of such villagers, all of whom turned and hailed him brightly. He was the archangel Michael to them, come with swords to protect the Greeks.

“So whom do I go to for buying many swords, very quickly?” Achilles asked them, and listened with a smile as they vied for the honor of taking him to the best swords-maker in town. 

“I know the best. No, the very best. You come with me.”

“Oh no, I know who he means! Neo’s fool cousin! No, no, forget him, I know the best.”

Meanwhile, Xander returned to the ship and was soon in the cabin, hunched over the map he’d spread on the wooden table. It wanted to curl up again, so he’d placed candles at each corner. The door was open to let in the afternoon light. With a feather and ink, he hovered. He could read the map well enough, and was now marking the towns he wished to involve in his security system. One didn’t live over 30 years illiterate without developing one’s own little system for remembering things. He made three dots in a triangle where Rhamnus lay—three dots meant _home._ Then he set about marking areas where he knew villages lay. He might not remember their names, or be able to spell them if he did, but he knew where they were, because he’d visited every damn one of them when he was looking for his family.

He was so engrossed, it startled him rather badly to hear an unfamiliar voice very close to him calling out.

“Achilles! Achilles, ahoy, mate! It’s Luke! Coming aboard, alright? Alright!”

Xander was on his feet and armed with a knife instantly. He ran out on deck to see a rather weathered looking fellow with dirty blond hair and a prominent jaw climbing up the ladder and over the rail with a package under one arm. The fellow saw him and smiled.

“Which one are you?” Then he saw the knife, and the determined look. “Oh, yeah. I know which one you are.”

“Who the hell are you?!” Xander demanded, lowering his head warningly.

“Now, now, I come in peace,” the fellow said, offering the package. “I’m Luke. I’m here for Achilles. His mother sent his—medicine, you could say.”

Xander straightened alertly, lowering his knife. “He has a mother?” The astonishment in his voice was evident.

Luke smiled, rubbing his chin. “They’re always so surprised,” he mused. “Is he here?”

Xander tucked the knife in his belt, where he could grab it again if Luke turned out to be less friendly than he seemed. “He’s in the village, seeing about arms. Did you come from Thessaly? You don’t sound like it.” 

“Who, me? No, Ithaca, why?” Luke looked around. “Oh, I see you have a bit of a dining area,” he added hopefully. “Long boat ride from his mother’s island. Well, not as long as Gades was, but…” he smiled engagingly, “a bit of wine, now, I wouldn’t turn it down.”

Xander kept an eye on him and edged to the rail to peer over at the fellow’s boat, bobbing in the water lashed to his own boat, which was in turn lashed to the ship.

“Who’s with you?” He asked suspiciously.

“No one, I promise. It’s just me and the care package from his mother.” Luke seemed to be looking at him rather wistfully.

“What?” Xander barked, still a little disconcerted that someone had gotten practically onto his ship without his being aware.

“Oh, nothing. I just… had gotten to be fairly friendly with Hermenegild. I’d see him a couple times a year, we’d have a few drinks. He was the serious sort, but we did well enough.”

Xander had no idea what any of that meant.

“You know what? I should have brought the wine. I didn’t think. I was just bringing the package and thought Achilles would be here…” Luke looked around the ship. “So, you think he’ll be back soon? I’d like to wait here if I may. It’s been years since I’ve seen him…?”

It occurred to Xander finally that here was someone who could perhaps tell him about his mysterious patron. He decided to risk it.

“…Of course. Of course, come sit down… we’ll raise the small sail and use it for shade. Here, we’ll drag the chairs over here—“ suddenly he was the bustling host, moving the chairs, going down into the hold for a casket of wine.

Luke looked relieved, and soon they were comfortably settled in the shade with the wine, and the mysterious package sitting in the cabin on the table.

“So. Achilles has a mother just like any normal man,” Xander probed, head tipped inquisitively.

“Normal? Heh. Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Luke grinned. “She’s uhm… she’s not what you’d call…”

“Ordinary?” Xander guessed.

“Human,” Luke offered.

Xander just looked at him.

“You know,” Luke said, “we can see a bit in that crystal ball of hers, but we can’t hear a thing. So I don’t really know what he’s told you.”

“About what?” Xander asked carefully.

“About anything. About himself.” Luke looked a little hesitant.

Xander smiled at the horizon for a moment and then looked back at Luke. “He’s told us his name, and that he’s from Thessaly. That he went off on a campaign and never went back.”

“Ah,” Luke said. Then he took a good swig of wine. 

Xander waited.

“Well… so far, everything he told you is true, I can say that,” Luke finally told him with a smile. 

Xander decided to just plunge in. “I’ve decided he’s a Greek god from two thousand years ago who wanders the world searching for men who look like Hector of Troy.”

“Oh, he doesn’t have to wander, the sea god brings him right to you,” Luke said without missing a beat.

A bit of a chill went down Xander’s back. He’d told himself his theory was probably a wild fantasy.

“Really,” he said casually.

“Every time,” Luke said cheerfully. “Well, almost every time. Apparently there was one in the desert of Egypt or someplace he couldn’t get to, but other than that…”

Xander took a drink of wine. “So… my brother and I—“

“He’s the one with the farm?” Luke asked.

Xander stared at him for a moment, wondering how much he knew, and how he knew it. “Yes. So, my brother and I look like this Hector.”

“Oh, you don’t just look like him. You are him. You are Hector.” Luke said calmly. 

“And you know this because?” Xander felt a little testy about being someone else.

“Well, Thetis knew him! And I knew Hermenegild, and you’re certainly exactly like him, so—“

“Thetis?” 

“Achilles’ mother. She’s a goddess,” Luke smiled again. “And I mean that in every way.”

Xander poured them both some more wine. This was the maddest conversation he’d ever had, but he reminded himself that he’d personally seen Achilles start fire, make gold, and kill with both hands like a demon. And Karan had been saved and healed by him.

“So, Achilles is a god—“ he began.

“Actually a demi-god, but his mother has been doing everything she can to strengthen his powers,” Luke broke in.

“Right. So Achilles is a demi-god, and I’m the Prince of Troy,” finished Xander.

“Well, not anymore, you’re not. But… yes,” Luke said.

“And there have been others.”

Luke started counting them off on his fingers. “There was the monk, and then the count, poor chap, and then the other prince…”

Xander regarded him with narrowed eyes. “Which one got his feet broken by torturers?” He asked testingly.

“Prince Hermenegild, and his own father ordered it,” Luke answered instantly. “That was a nasty business.”

Xander drank some more wine and sat in silence for a moment, rather stunned. He’d thought it was just a bad dream from running around barefoot on sharp stones as a child.

“Don’t worry too much about your past lives,” Luke advised. “We all have them. It’s probably best we don’t remember too much. All that pain could add up, you know?”

Xander was feeling a little overwhelmed at this point and just gave him a bit of a side-eye.

“It is a pity you don’t remember Achilles, though,” Luke added. “I know that’s what he dreams of, that some day he’ll come ashore and find you, and you’ll say, _There you are, finally!”_

 _“Welcome home,”_ Xander finished, and suddenly his eyes were a bit moist.

“Yeah,” Luke nodded. 

Xander put his chalice down and sat rubbing his fingers in his whiskers. Finally he turned to Luke. “But what’s the reason for it all??”

Luke looked a bit lost. “Reason for what? The patterns? No one knows. Personally, I don’t think there is a reason. It’s just a wheel that keeps turning, and we’re on it.”

Xander was just opening his mouth to ask, _But why does he keep going?_ When a feeling came over him that Achilles was on the dock, looking toward the ship. He got up from his chair and went to the rail to look. Achilles was there.

“There he is,” Xander turned, but Luke had already risen.

“Let me row over and get him. You stay here and pour us some more wine.”

When he saw who pulled up to the dock to greet him, Achilles blinked with surprise. He stepped down into the small boat and embraced Luke heartily, and then held his shoulders and squinted at him.

“You haven’t left the island at all, have you?” He asked.

“Once you left Gades, there was no reason,” Luke told him genially. “And your mother prefers I stay put. She says every time I leave, when I come back she has to fix my teeth.”

Achilles smiled wonderingly. “What does that mean?”

Luke shrugged. “I don’t know.”

They laughed together and sat down so Luke could row him back to the ship. “Your new one’s kind of sharp,” he opined. “I thought Hermenegild had an edge, but this one—“

Achilles’ face grew pensive. Luke paused in his rowing. “You miss every one of them, don’t you?”

“Yes,” the warrior said shortly.

Luke nodded, chastising himself for speaking of past Hectors so casually, and started rowing again. “I brought you some more of your tonic. Your mother sent a letter, too.”

“What does she say?” Achilles focused again.

“Well,” they were pulling near the ship again. “She’s worried. She says the old gods are disappearing. They’re withdrawing to some other realm. Humans don’t worship them anymore. She says she doesn’t know what effect it will have, maybe none, but she wants you to develop whatever powers you have.”

“Why? How will that help?” Achilles asked.

“She seems to think that those of you who remain are more vulnerable without them,” Luke said. 

Achilles looked up the ladder to see Xander hovering over the rail, waiting for him. 

“The sea god… her father…” he asked in sudden alarm.

But Luke grinned. “Oh, don’t worry about him. People will always pray when they’re on the water. If they don’t he starts slapping their boat around.”

Achilles relaxed and stood to climb up the ladder. He had every intention of developing every power he could, if only for the fun of it. “Let me show you my trick with the candles.”


	13. Candles are fun

It was late now. Xander sat heavy-eyed on the bed in the cabin and watched the two drunks at the table. 

“No, no, wait… wait…” Achilles was laughing, “I can’t do it when I’m laughing…”

He went to pinch the wick of the candle and his fingers couldn’t quite find it. Luke was grinning too, poised to blow out the flame the moment it appeared. They had been playing this game for several minutes now.

“Wait…” Achilles’ hand hovered over the candle waveringly.

“You can’t even get it! You can’t even get it!” Luke gasped, wheezing.

“Wait… wait…” Achilles finally managed to grasp the wick. He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply through his nose, and let go.

 _Flame!_ Luke blew it out immediately and they both dissolved into helpless laughter again.

Xander shook his head slowly. “You two are f-fucked,” he managed. His tongue felt a little thick.

Luke looked at him with his mouth open for a moment, and then swung his head back to Achilles, who was drinking the last of his wine.

“Do it again!”

Achilles grinned and lifted his hand again. “Okay. Wait… wait… where is it??”

“Is right there!” Luke cried, pointing a finger that waved back and forth.

Achilles scowled. “You want me to do them both?”

“There’s only one,” Xander started laughing uncontrollably too. “There’s only one!”

“Okay, I see it. I see it. Okay, wait. Wait.”

 _Flame! Woosh_ —Luke blew it out. They fell about, laughing. 

Xander shook his head. “I’m going to sleep,” he said, and bent over to paw at his sandals. After a struggle, he got them off and crawled to the far side of the bed. If they managed to stagger to it, he fully expected to have to share it with both of them.

The ship rocked gently, and Xander gradually drifted off to sleep, hearing as he faded:

“Wait… wait…”

“Come on!”

“I can’t, you’re making me laugh… wait…”

_Woosh!!_

“Ha ha ha ha… oh my God… do it again!”

***.

They woke in the morning wanting little to do with one another. Luke rolled out of the bed first; he’d been so close to the edge, it wasn’t much of a journey. He staggered about blearily, looking for water.

“Water,” Xander pointed to the bucket, and then scooted to the foot of the bed to exit directly out the door and go piss over the rail.

Achilles crawled out last, hair a wild golden mane, eyes heavy-lidded. They drank water and went carefully out onto the deck to squint at the morning. Xander plodded down to the hold to get some eggs and meat. 

When he returned, he stirred up the embers in the coal of the brazier and put the meat on the grate, and then took up the thin sheet of metal they sizzled their eggs on and placed it to heat.

They sat in the chairs, moodily staring at the brazier, nursing their aching heads.

Finally, Luke broke the silence. “You never opened your package.”

Achilles sighed, and then heaved himself out of the chair with a growl and went into the cabin.

“So. You live with his mother on a magical island.” Xander said, and then had to clear his throat.

“Mm hmm. Decades now. Not sure how long… what year is this?” Luke’s entire forehead wrinkled up.

“746,” Xander said.

“Jesus! God damn. Yeah, long time.” 

Xander fell back into silence, staring at the brazier. He was hungry.

A moment later, Achilles exited the cabin in a sprightly manner, and they both turned to look at him. His face was smooth and healthy, and his eyes were clear and bright.

“Oh, I wish I could drink your mother’s tonic,” Luke moaned.

Achilles looked a bit smug.

Xander gave him a grumpy look from his seat. “Pity those healing powers don’t extend to hangovers.” 

Achilles looked at him and blinked. “Let’s see,” he said, and put his hands on his Hector’s curls, bowing his own head to admire the line of his beloved’s nose. He squeezed Xander’s head and closed his eyes.

“Oh,” Xander gasped, and his dark eyes grew wide. He lifted his head and gazed up at Achilles with that open-mouthed stare that the warrior had always loved.

“Better?”

“That’s amazing!”

Luke’s head lolled back. “Do me,” he pleaded.

Achilles grinned and went to him, placing his hands on the dark blond hair and closing his eyes.

Soon, three perfectly sound men were wolfing down the meat and eggs.

“I don’t have my own ship anymore,” Luke explained between bites. “So I paid the captain of a merchant ship to ride along. He’ll leave in a few hours, and if I want to get back to the island, I’d best be aboard.”

“Where is it?” Achilles asked.

Luke pointed to a ship down the waterfront, on the far end of the beach. “You’ll laugh; it’s called the _Calypso_.”

Achilles smiled appreciatively and finished his food. “We’ll row you over.”

“We’ll have to take both boats,” Luke said. “I rented that one, and once it’s returned, you’ll need a way back.”

Achilles and Luke clambered into the small boat, and Xander into his own. They set off along the waterfront, and Achilles smiled over at Xander and then dug his oars into the blue water and shot off with amazing speed. Xander was powerful enough, but he was human. Achilles pulled away and left him in the spray.

Xander glared after them, and decided that Achilles would have to wait, then, once he’d seen his friend aboard his ship.

“He seems okay,” Luke said as they practically flew towards his ship. “But the other one is the nice one, yeah?”

Achilles just smiled, and continued rowing. The breeze blew his long hair around.

“Say, be sure to read your mother’s letter,” Luke said seriously. “She’s really worried. She says one day it will be a world without gods, except for those who were left behind.”

“Left behind?” Achilles asked, letting them coast for a moment.

“Well, there are tiers, you know,” Luke told him. “Your mother says, anyway, that there are tiers, and the higher ones are the ones with the power to leave this realm. Your grandfather could, if he wanted. But she can’t. And you certainly can’t. You’re more than human, but—“

“—less than Apollo and his sort,” Achilles finished irritably, grabbing the oars and pulling again. “Yes, I know. I also know that those lofty sorts rarely did anything for humans. I doubt they’ll be missed.”

“Maybe,” Luke conceded. “But read her letter. She listed every ability and power she could think of that anyone in her family has ever manifested. She wants you to try and discover them all.”

“In myself,” Achilles clarified doubtfully. “Does she think I have them all?”

“No. But you don’t know which ones you have, so … try. Practice. _Search within yourself_ , she says.” They were now at the dock on the other end of the waterfront where the merchant vessels clustered, far from the shallower waters the fishing boats could navigate. 

Luke climbed out onto the dock, which was teaming with sailors getting ready to get underway. He glanced over at the ship that brought him. “She also says you are close enough for a visit from time to time,” Luke raised his brows meaningfully. “You know how mothers are. And you should come! I’ve been fixing up the citadel. I’m pretty handy, you know. You should see it!”

“I know,” Achilles said, and reached up to shake Luke’s hand one more time. “I’ll come. I promise. Once we get a security system up and operating, I’ll bring Xander, and we’ll come.”

“But not Karan? You have a preference?” Luke was curious.

“No. But Karan has a family, and they make him happy,” Achilles said soberly.

Luke nodded. Then he raised his hand and pointed to a very large, heavy set man with a blue rag tied about his head who was walking down the dock in their direction with a furious look on his bearded face.

“That’s who I rented the boat from, so you’ll want to give him a bit of gold,” he grinned.

Achilles looked at the angry giant stomping toward them. “When you say rented—“

Luke grinned and headed quickly for his ship home. Achilles sighed and pulled himself up onto the dock, and dug two gold pebbles out of his ready purse.

The bearded man drew his fist back to strike, and Achilles held up the pebbles in his open hand, smiling invitingly.

The fist hovered, and then dropped. The fellow picked the pebbles off the warrior’s palm and looked over at his boat anxiously. Seeing it no worse for wear, he pocketed the gold and then narrowed his eyes at Achilles.

“I know you. You’re the one who killed half the Saracens that landed on the beach that day,” he nodded. “That was some fine fighting.”

Achilles assessed him. He was almost as big as Ajax. “We’re starting a defense force,” he said temptingly. “Care to join? I’ll pay you.”

The giant looked across the water at the white Hector, bobbing brightly in the blue, against the backdrop of the distant hills of the far boarder of the strait. 

“You’ll need more than one ship,” he stated immediately. “Saracens travel in packs of 4 to 6.”

“Do you have a ship?” Achilles asked.

“Can you get me a ship?” The fellow threw back.

“Can you sail a ship?” Achilles responded.

“Hell, yes!” He said, and the warrior smiled at how similar fishermen tended to be. The giant looked behind Achilles. “Xander,” he nodded, and Achilles turned to see that his beloved had pulled up along the dock, finally.

“Timon,” Xander greeted him. He looked at Achilles and then back at the giant. “Say, would you like to join our crew?”

“Help us train a crew for a couple weeks, and I’ll buy you a ship to join our budding fleet,” Achilles offered, pleased that Xander had immediately had the same idea as he. 

Timon looked at them both, felt the gold pebbles in his pocket, and nodded. “Alright.” Then he grinned “Hell, why not?”


	14. Dinner again

Thus the week progressed. It was soon evident that they needed a second small boat, so that Achilles and Xander could both come and go independently. Achilles bought the smallest he could, because he could ferry himself back and forth in minutes with his powerful strokes. He came to rather enjoy settling himself into the boat, putting his back to the breeze, and digging into the water to pull with all the bunching muscles in his back to cut through the water to the _Hector._

By day, Achilles was the public face of the effort to build a defense for the village. He went ashore every day, gathering up the two or three more swords that were ready to fill his orders from the various smithies who were all at work. On his way, he stopped at the shops, and the butchers. He spoke with the men who lingered on the corners, and spread the word about needing fighters who would be willing to row up the coast on Saturday. He exchanged gold pebbles for coins to give to Xander for supplies.

Xander continued work on the ship, replacing worn line with fresh rope, and mending small tears in the sails. Occasionally he came to shore for food, and to exchange dirty laundry for clean at the little cottage of the washwoman favored by the fishermen. 

By day, they were both quite busy.

By night, they explored Xander’s hunger for possessing his patron. It gave him a strange delight to whisper orders to a being so powerful, and have them followed so obligingly. For Achilles, it was a novel dynamic to have a Hector who wanted to lay claim on him, who had such a fascination for tasting his golden skin, and making demands upon him. 

Yet, it wasn’t as simple as an exchange of relative positions. Achilles’ desire for Hector had begun as a desire to conquer an almost-equal, only to become besotted by the realization that in so many ways, Hector was his superior. He’d wanted to scoop that goodness up into his arms and ingest it, and protect it, and test it, all at once.

Xander was more like a boy who has found a powerful steed, and yearned to ride it at top speed, glorying in the thrill of it. It wasn’t to say he did not have great affection for his muscular steed; he caressed Achilles every night after every act, holding him tight, broodingly. But he did not desire Achilles’ attention the way Achilles had always craved Hector’s. He was not jealous of his warrior’s thoughts, or disturbed when he was out of sight. By day, he was concentrating on his self-chosen duty to create a little navy for their patch of coast. Only at night, when they crawled naked into their bed, did the sight and smell and feel of Achilles awaken in him the sudden desire to take him in his arms and do whatever he could to him.

Achilles didn’t notice this difference, nor would he have cared. His Hector was on top of him, kissing him ardently, searching his mouth with a demanding tongue, rubbing against him as if every inch of them must be touching, his long fingers tangled in the blond hair. It was bliss.

But by Friday, the warrior had begun to worry. Karan had sent an invitation for them to come to dinner again and stay the night. What would happen when they went to the compound, and night fell? Achilles wondered if Xander would take the extra room and maintain the fiction that they were merely companions? Would he step aside and allow his twin the secret nocturnal visit that all three of them knew was expected? Or was there going to be a confrontation?

Early Friday afternoon, they made their trek to the widow’s house, to bathe and groom more thoroughly. There, they would array themselves in the wardrobe of fine clothes that Achilles had decided to maintain ashore rather than transport to a ship where they would never be worn.

“Perhaps after dinner, I’ll return here to sleep. Let the evening be for family,” Achilles said as they were setting out—on horses that Karan had sent from his own stables expressly for them. 

Xander sat easily on his mount. He seemed much more confident this second time, with no book in his hands, or fear of rejection in his heart.

“What, would you walk back here alone in the dark? No, don’t. Karan will want you to stay the night.”

He said it without any knowing look or smile, but Achilles took it as a mark of his understanding that Karan also had a claim upon his love, and so gave him a look that signified acquiescence, and they set off up the road.

And it was pleasant to arrive at the compound, and see that Dru had been waiting for them at the gate excitedly. It was peasant to be welcomed as family, to see Karan embrace his brother—well, that was more than pleasant, Achilles admitted. It was paradise to be embraced by Karan himself, in whose hands he felt and whose eyes he saw a tenderness unlike the hunger in Xander’s.

Even Zoe was a pleasure to behold; healthy and cheerful now that her husband—as far as she knew—was her own again, and the estate was his own. The baby was doing well now, and Achilles looked down at him, trying to see any resemblance to his beloved in the tiny face. But he was barely two months old now, and mostly just looked pink and froglike. Still, Achilles mused, Karan gazed down at him with unabated pride and satisfaction, and the tiny thing looked tinier and pinker than ever with his father’s black curls and strong, sloping shoulders as a backdrop. When Karan looked up from his child, with his large dark eyes glowing and a smile of helpless love on his face, Achilles felt once again that he had made the right choices, and given his Hector back, as best he could, all that he had once lost.

In fact, he thought, sitting at dinner, looking from one of them to the other, he had been instrumental in both of their lives. He’d saved Karan from dying horribly in the stable fire. He’d saved Zoe from dying in childbirth, and perhaps the baby as well, although he wasn’t certain about the baby. But still. He’d helped protect their village. He’d helped Xander be accepted by his family, helped him claim the ship that was now his own little estate. The pleasure he felt in being their benefactor was not as sharp and intense, of course, as the pleasure of making love to either of them. But it was a hum of satisfaction in the background, like music at a celebration.

Because it was just a small family dinner, Zoe was at the table rather than supervising the kitchen, and the four of them had many anecdotes to relate. Karan and Zoe reported on the baby’s development, the state of the fencing, the progress of the new stable, and the frolics and experiments of Dru, who tried to ride one of the pigs one day and ended up having to bathe in the sea before he smelled good enough to return home. Xander reported on the progress of the ship and supplies for the crew, and described Achilles’ friend Luke, although he didn’t mention the candle game. Instinctively, both Xander and Karan now avoided mention of Achilles’ nature unless they were alone with him. For now, for this supper, it was pleasant just be family and friends coming together, with everything else kept in abeyance until the food was cleared away, the servants dismissed for the evening, and Zoe gone to bed.

But that time did eventually come. Zoe went to the nursery with the baby, and thence to bed and silence fell. The three of them were alone.

Achilles rose and went to the courtyard, leaving the two brothers together. At some level, he realized, he was letting them decide his fate for the night. He was joint property waiting to be claimed, and while he missed Karan, he loved them both. They were both different sides of Hector. 

He stared at nothing for a long while, remembering the courtyard in Gades, and the fireflies that would rise at night. It was only months ago to him, but how many years had actually passed? He hadn’t asked what year it was now; he didn’t care anymore. What he knew was that if he went back now, the villa would probably be gone. If he went and found the tomb he’d bought for Hermenegild, it would be sunken and cracked now, the beloved body inside shrunk to bones and rags, already.

Inhaling, he tried to shake himself of such morbid thoughts. Now he had Xander and Karan, and he could see every one of them all at once in these two, like the stroke of a hand across the strings of a lyre making them all sound at once. Finally he lifted his head, feeling as though he’d forgotten to breathe for some time. 

Achilles turned and re-entered the dining room. 

“I’m going to bed,” he said, with only the briefest glances at them both. Even the way they sat marked them as different. Xander’s chair was turned sideways, he leaning back in it with one arm on the table; Karan was across from him, leaning forward, both arms resting evenly before him—Hector in different moods. And tonight they were dressed rather similarly… and yet he knew them both by the tip or turn of the head, the eyes… Achilles went in the dark down the hallway to his room, noting the silence behind him. 

He went in and pinched the candle to life, and shed his clothes. He turned to the bowl and pitcher, and cleaned himself again. Then he got into the bed, lay back and waited, feeling a bit like a concubine. It would be a wry joke, he thought as he closed his eyes, if neither of them came in deference to the other, and all three lay awake all night.

Letting his muscles relax, Achilles concentrated on the sounds and smells of the night that came in the open window. Land smells were different than sea smells, sweeter and warmer, and it was the first time in a week he lay on a bed that didn’t rock slightly. That contributed to the feeling of utter stillness as he lay in the candlelight, eyes shut, sheets pushed down around his waist.

Finally he heard the slight sound of the door opening, and his eyelids registered the faint increase in the amount of candlelight in the room. He moved slightly so that his visitor, whichever one it was, might know he was awake, but he kept his eyes shut. 

He listened to his Hector—one of them—shed his sandals and tunic. He felt the depression on the bed to his right and felt instinctively that it was Xander. Karan would always sit on his left, closest to the door. He felt the warm body slide into the bed and maneuver an arm under his neck. He felt the hand take up his out-flung arm and fold it over himself. He felt himself being shifted onto his side and then the heat of the naked body pressing against his back. Definitely Xander.

Achilles listened to the faint scrape of the pot of oil being moved slightly, and then felt warm fingers sliding between his buttocks, slicking the crease with the heady scent. He felt his lover’s cock, stiff already, slide into the crease, and then the movement of the hips to run its hardness up and down, not entering, just rubbing against him teasingly. He gave a deep sigh of contentment, letting his head fall back passively over his Hector’s shoulder.

Xander pulled his pliant god more fully onto him and slid one leg between the muscular thighs, parting them. Then he brought his arms up under Achilles’ arms and pulled them back, as if opening him up for an embrace—or positioning him like a sacrifice, with wrists tied to the corners of the bed. There he held his warrior, who submitted absolutely and lay limp, except for the erection growing under the sheet, and allowed his love to undulate slowly against him, rubbing that hard cock against his vulnerable and sensitized opening. He reveled in the eroticism of this slow approach. Sometimes Xander did this sort of thing for what seemed like an eternity, aroused, but not urgent, wallowing in the wanton positions and hypnotic sensations.


	15. Three

Karan sat alone at the dining table with the last candle, waiting until he was certain the household was settled for the night. He’d wondered all week how it might be now with Xander and Achilles. The more time they spent together, the more he felt it must be inevitable that Xander would take his place in Achilles’ affections. And could he even protest? He, who had everything? Of course he must not protest, though it made his heart ache. He, who was not even the firstborn after all, to still end up with the estate, the wife, the child… if he must pay for it by handing Achilles over to his defrauded brother, who had suffered alone for so many years… was it not right?

But when his guests had arrived that night, Xander had asked immediately if he might lay his cloak and few toiletries in his usual room. It seemed that separate bedrooms were still on order for Achilles and Xander, and Karan’s hopes had risen. This wasn’t a situation he had the courage to address openly. He spent the evening watching them both, looking for loving gazes and lingering touches, or anything that suggested physical intimacy. He saw nothing. They were comfortable together, but Xander had no longing glances for anyone. 

So, when the night grew quiet, Karan was fairly certain it was safe to take his last candle and go barefoot and silent on the stone floor to Achilles’ room. He saw that the door to Xander’s room was firmly shut, but that of his angel’s was slightly ajar, and glowing of candlelight within.

Karan stepped into the room, and when his eyes found the bed, he froze. There was Achilles, splayed with arms wide, naked to the waist, head lolling back, long column of throat bared and waiting. Behind him was Xander, holding him in this position, and staring at the door as if he had been waiting.

In the ensuing silence, Karan felt as though his heart were drumming loud enough to hear.

“Come in and close the door,” Xander directed quietly. “Put the candle over here.”

Head buzzing with shock, Karan hesitated for a moment, and then obeyed. It was the easiest thing to do.

“Get the oil,” Xander directed next, nuzzling his captive’s ear.

Karan understood the nature of this game now, and heart racing, he took up the pot of oil and drizzled some in his hands. 

“Start at his chest.”

Achilles opened his eyes as if just becoming aware that Karan was kneeling on the bed. Their eyes locked as Karan applied the oil and began rubbing it in, over the nipples that tightened at his touch. Achilles’ full lips parted as if in shock but he offered no protest. Karan’s eyes, questing and soft, seemed to ask him if he could do this, massage and touch him down over his ribs and belly as his twin held his arms spread wide.

Of course, they all knew the warrior could free himself instantly if he chose.

“You should take off those robes before you get oil all over them,” Xander suggested, his voice barely above a whisper. Karan could see, though Achilles was mostly on top of him, that they both were already nude. He paused to slide his robes off and let them fall carelessly to the floor. 

“Pull the sheet down and take your hands, and oil his cock and balls, but do it slowly,” Xander commanded.

With increasing arousal, Karan did as he was directed, wetting his lips slightly with his tongue, noting how his brother’s knee pushed up between the golden thighs, holding them apart. When he put his hands on that straining thickness, Achilles’ mouth opened in a silent roar, and his head fell back again, eyes closing.

Now Xander was moving his hips again, using the shaft of his cock to caress the tight opening between those firm buttocks as Karan stroked him in front, fondling the tight balls and watching that long, defined torso writhe with the dual sensations. Finally, with a groan, Karan slicked himself up quickly and lay on him, grinding their cocks together.

Achilles lay spread out between them as they pleasured themselves against his submitting form. Xander set the rhythm, and Achilles undulated to it obediently. Karan pushed back against them both, ardently kissing the long, exposed neck. For several long moments they moved together in soft grunts and stifled moans, both reaching for the warm body between them, digging in their fingers and putting their mouths wherever they could reach. 

Then Xander put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Over on your back. Over on your back!”

Karan fell back, arms open, and Xander rolled Achilles, who was nearly in a trancelike state of ecstasy, over on top of him, and mounted from behind. It was only when Achilles wrapped his arms tightly around Karan and gave an open-mouthed grimace of almost-pain that Karan realized; Xander was penetrating their captive, who clung to him in response. It was the most stirring moment Karan had experienced in his life, to feel his beloved grasping him in panting reaction while Xander invaded him slowly, causing ripples of sensation to shiver through all three of them. He pushed down on them both, crushing their cocks together more tightly than ever.

Achilles gave a throaty exhalation as Xander eased his way in, and bucked against Karan. Karan kissed him to quiet him, and used his tongue to stroke his lover’s. Achilles kissed him back ardently, and they resumed rubbing against each other even under the thrusts from behind as Xander, holding himself on up strong arms, rested some of his weight on Achilles’ buttocks, and then pounded in between them.

They settled into the new rhythm, but then Xander would change position slightly, and use his hips to skewer his god afresh. Achilles’ shuddering moan of reaction, his grimaces of pleasured pain, drove Karan half-mad with desire, and soon it seemed as though Achilles were a slave between two stern masters who were punishing him for some act of defiance. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he clung almost pleadingly to Karan, who gripped his waist in tight clutches and thrust up against his leaking cock as Xander slammed down on his hips with harsher thrusts.

At last, with a strangled cry Achilles came, his face red and buried in the pillow. Karan threw his head back and came too, as he felt the hot seed spurting out of his lover. On top, Xander felt the clench of Achilles’ orgasm squeezing his own cock and gave a few more punishing slaps with his hips, before he convulsed and came too, burying his face between the sweating shoulder blades beneath him. For a long moment, the three of them just lay, panting.

Finally, Karan gave a few slaps with his hand on Xander’s arm. “I can’t breathe!” He gasped, being pinned under both of them.

Xander withdrew carefully, and they both felt Achilles shiver in reaction between them, and then he rolled over. Karan rolled Achilles off of him carefully—the warriors head lolled as if he were unconscious—and then inhaled deeply, expanding his ribcage as fully as he could. Then he exhaled.

For a long moment, there was silence. Finally, Karan said, “Thank God this room is at the end of the hallway.”

The other two both broke into silent chuckles, and when they faded, just lay letting the sweat cool on their bodies. They may even have dozed, briefly. But at length, Xander quietly extricated himself from the tangle of limbs, and got out of the bed. He took the rag from the water bowl and dabbed himself off, and then toweled himself dry. Then he took up another towel and tossed it to the bed.

Picking up his tunic from the floor, he slipped it on and then leaned over the bed. He gave Achilles’ arm a stroke and Karan’s shoulder a pat. 

“I’ll see you both in the morning,” he said, and taking up a candle, he quietly slipped out the door, pulling it closed behind him.

In the silence, Karan took the towel his brother had offered, and wiped himself and his angel off. When they were dry enough to be comfortable, they pulled the covers up and moved into each others’ arms. Karan stroked the long blond hair tenderly, kissing Achilles’ forehead over and over again. Achilles ran his hands up and down Karan’s back, pushing his face into the full muscles of his Hector’s chest.

“Are you alright?” Karan whispered.

Achilles nuzzled his collarbone. “Mm hm.”

Karan cuddled his angel for long, satisfying moments, but then his brows crimped up in that worried slant that Hector had almost always worn.

“But does he love you?” He whispered. 

Achilles drew back slightly to gaze into the dark eyes. “I think he likes me.”

Karan looked dissatisfied. “But I love you.”

Achilles smiled slightly. “But do you like me?”

“What?” Karan asked, as if the question made no sense. 

Achilles’ smile grew into a slight chuckle. “Kiss me,” he suggested, and Karan obeyed eagerly. They kissed sweetly for long, leisurely minutes. Finally, by mutual agreement, they settled back on the pillows and drifted off to sleep.


	16. Chapter 16

When the four of them—for Dru was on them like a little burr the moment they left the house—went down to the waterfront in the morning, they were astonished at the crowd of men who waited for them. When they arrived, a cheer rose up. 

“Here they are!—Here we go—I brought gloves—Let’s do it! Let’s do it!”

Xander came forward, eyes bright and dark. He lifted a fist, and the men returned the salute with another cheer.

Achilles and Karan watched for a moment.

“He was made to be a military leader,” Karan suddenly said. Achilles nodded. 

“Alright. Let’s start ferrying these shepherds and merchants out to the ship and see which ones throw up once it starts moving,” Achilles said, and they moved forward into the crowd to organize the volunteers.

Two hours later, the _Hector_ was cutting gracefully through the bright blue waves, with Xander maneuvering the large sail, and Dru not doing too much damage with the smaller one. Achilles was aft, facing the rowers, who pulled in unison quite well under his direction.

Xander pointed in the direction he wanted to turn and pulled the tagline on that side. Dru saw and did his best to copy. Achilles held up a fist to the rowers on that side, and they pulled up their oars and rested while the others continued. The ship executed a neat turn toward Boe, and Achilles nodded to the rowers to resume, a pleased smile on his face. 

When they reached the little marina. Xander and Dru lowered the sails, Achilles sent the rowers into reverse for a moment, and then a halt. Then he turned to the aft to drop the anchor. It was all very smooth, and Xander gave the crew two fists up.

“You old salts!!” He called out, and they cheered themselves brightly. Then they stood up and winced at every sore muscle they knew they’d feel tomorrow. Xander continued. “You each get a coin right now, but this isn’t your pay. This is for buying drinks, and I don’t want to hear you spent it on something stupid instead!”

There was a roar of appreciative laughter. He held up his hand.

“Now, it’s just a small coin, because you still have to row back! Be back here in two hours, unless of course you want that 7-mile walk back home!”

Grinning, they accepted their coins and disembarked down the ladder to the dock. 

Watching them go, Dru asked, “Why don’t you moor the ship at the docks where the merchants do back home?”

Achilles smiled slightly. “I think Xander doesn’t like unexpected visitors.”

“Alright,” Xander called to them. “Karan, the next phase is yours. You know men in Boe, and they know you. Let’s find someone who’ll want to talk to you about Saracens.”

While they dispersed about their missions, Achilles elected to stay with the ship in case anyone got too curious about it. When they were gone up the dock and into the sunny streets of Boe, he turned to the shade of the cabin, realizing suddenly that it was the first time he’d been alone in weeks. 

In the quiet of the cabin, he sought out his mother’s letter. He’d glanced over it briefly when he opened the package—it wasn’t chatty, but his mother never was—but now he applied himself to the list she’d made of powers and abilities he should try to discover in himself. They were very strange.

_Separating salt from water_ – was the first one. After he thought about it, it made sense; that fountain of fresh water that had bubbled up in his mother’s island forever, that wasn’t natural. Islands that tiny rarely had fresh water sources.

_Causing fruits and vegetables to ripen_ – he gave a grimace. That was a pretty high order. Demeter-level, so legends had it. He’d never met any of the loftier gods. His mother’s family of nymphs and his grandfather were all. He was, in fact, no more certain they existed than Hector had been. It would be a laugh if he and his mother were as good as it ever got.

_Starting fire_ – he smirked with satisfaction and moved on.

_Become invisible_ – not a chance, Achilles was certain.

_Draw lightning and direct it through you_ – that sounded like suicide, he decided.

_Draw wind_ – that looked boring.

_Command animals_ – he raised his eyebrows. But horses were easy enough to command by mortal means. He didn’t want an army of attack cats. Dogs, though… maybe.

_Turn people to stone_ – he grimaced with irritation at that. Who would he practice on?! Anyone who deserved it must be such a threat, one wouldn’t have time to practice. Anyone who was not… really didn’t deserve to be practiced on. 

_Transform into an animal_ – he could see no advantage to that at all. What if he couldn’t change back? He could end up as dinner.

_Move things with your mind_ – he thought of Dru and smiled. 

_Summon others with your mind_ – that seemed an easy one to start with. He put the list away and decided to try it later. 

For now, a chalice of wine out on deck seemed appropriate. Things were going well, but one day, sadness would come again. Could be today. Could be twenty years from now. Achilles bent his mind toward the present. Karan and Xander were happy, and cared for him. When he’d begun this journey by falling in love with Hector, Prince of Troy, all he had wanted once he got his beloved safely to his mother’s island was for him to be happy, and to care for his Achilles. 

Increasingly, he found that when he accomplished it, it satisfied him only to an extent. Philip had been fairly happy, although always troubled by the lack of respect from his father, and the uneasiness about his immortal soul. Hermenegild had been as content as an exiled prince could be. But neither of them remembered what started it all. Deep down, Achilles knew that what he wanted most, was a Hector who remembered being Hector. A Hector who understood how many times Achilles had saved him, who knew how utterly Achilles had diverted from his own destiny to devote himself to protecting and loving the Prince of Troy.

But now he wondered if he should learn not to wish for that. He wondered if it was possible… not to wish for that.


End file.
